Sky One chief discusses "radical change"

Sky One controller James Baker has spoken about his plans to transform the channel into a higher quality offering.

"We made a decision last summer to pretty radically change Sky One," he explained at a controller session earlier today. "We thought there was an opportunity to create a really accurate reflection of the brand of Sky that James [Murdoch] wants... high quality."

Although he admitted that there was "a period" where the channel was insufficiently funded, Baker now believes that extra investment is now being directed at the right programmes. "I genuinely believe that the schedule we've got stands up against the terrestrials. What we're moving to is a slightly odd position: in the middle of a sandwich between being a terrestrial and being a multichannel."

That said, Sky One's ratings do not compare with the terrestrials: indeed, according to Barb, figures have been declining over the past few years.

Baker blames Sky One's significant decrease in mulitchannel penetration brought about by the emergence of Freeview. "We're now in about 60% of homes compared to almost full distribution."

Despite Freeview's runaway success, Sky has "no plans at all" to launch its flagship station onto the DTT platform and is even open to the possibility of relaunching it as a premium, HBO-like offering.

"That's something we're looking at as part of this change," said Baker. "I think if the audience values our content more and more, then in an evolving universe... you're going to set a price against that. There's an argument that there is an opportunity to explore there."

Pressed for more information on the upcoming launch of Sky Three, Baker remained coy but admitted that the station would feature a mix of Sky One programming and original content. "At the core of it is Sky One material but we are looking to add stuff to that."