Sky three

[David H]

I saw this channel on a freeview rebroadcast, but why isn't it (or Sky two which I presume exists logically) on cable? I'd never heard of it till last week.

[Buenchico]

It will come down to commercial agreements. If a cable company wants to sell an attractive package to its customers, it will need to carry some 'major' channels from the TV companies. So a TV company (e.g. Sky) will say to the cable company "OK, how much are you willing to pay us to allow you to carry our channel?".

In the case of a minority channel, however, the situation might be reversed. The cable company isn't too bothered whether it carries the channel or not. The television company, on the other hand, wants to be able to attract advertisers by telling them that their adverts will be seen in the homes of cable subscribers. In this case the cable company says to the TV company "OK, so you want us to carry your channel. How much are you prepared to pay?"

So, either way round, one side or the other is expecting some payment. If an agreement can be reached the cable company will carry the channel, otherwise it won't.

Chris

[funnywebsite]

I have it and it is the old travel channel. They have either taken over it or renamed it. It is on freeview whereas Sky you have to pay for so that is why it is probably not called Sky 2 if there is such a thing.

[LeMarchand]

Sky Two is the new name for what was Sky Mix.

Sky usually aren't in a hurry to dole out their new channels to cable (might encourage folk to get a Sky sub), but in this case Sky Three is pretty much Sky +1 (Year), hence its availability on Freeview - as an advert for Sky One. Cable folk already tend to have Sky, so there's no burning desire to sell it to them.

[monkeygirl]

Didn't Sky 3 use to be Sky Travel? As when I got my Freeview, I had Sky Travel and all of a sudden it started calling itself Sky 3.

[David H]

Thanks guys, I suspect the lovely people at Sky have fluffed this one pretty badly as no one has the slightest idea which channels they have. The travel and mix sound familiar, I've probably got them somewhere in the higher numbers where I rarely venture, but the latest scandal is I just discovered here I'm a celebrity has lost 90% of it's live feed. Boo!

[David H]

After a day of scrambled channel data, we now have Sky Two and Sky travel on NTL channels 178 and 179 with Travel extra on 180. We already had travel but whatever Sky Two was, my logic preceeded them as until this week it hadn't been there for a good few years.