Sky CEO James Murdoch has explained the necessity of the upcoming EPG overhaul.

"I think many people take the EPG for granted in a way," said Murdoch as he unveiled the company's latest financial results this morning. "It becomes very very familiar, it's easy to use and it just kind of sits there.

"But we wanted to continue to innovate with it and to use a lot more tools for customers so that they can get more flexibility and value out of the product they buy from us. So as the number of channels has increased, we thought it was important to make those channels as easy as possible to find."

He added: "There are some other new features in there as well. One of the ones I'm most excited about is the enhanced parental control feature, which not only allows familes to choose which channels are available in the house to different members of the house but also, if you record something (as a Sky+ customer), the feature will also protect what is recorded on the disc."