German pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland will commence the relocation of the playout and uplink for its transponders on the Astra satellite system (19.2 degrees East) from Munich to Milan tonight.
The move will take place in the night from November 7 to November 8, 2016 and from November 8 to November 9, 2016, between midnight and 04.00 CET, a Sky Deutschland spokesman confirmed to Broadband TV News. 10 of the 12 transponders used by Sky Deutschland on Astra will be relocated to Milan, the others will continue to be served from Munich.
This will lead to DTH satellite households and customers of cable networks served by Astra temporarily not being able to receive several Sky Deutschland channels. When the relocation is completed, the channels will become available again. No action is required on the subscribers’ side, the Sky spokesman stressed.
Sky Deutschland confirmed to Broadband TV News in February 2016 its decision to move its playout and uplink from SES Platform Services (now called MX1 following the merger with RR Media) in Unterföhring near Munich to Sky Italia’s teleport in Milan to “efficiently make use of the infrastructure within the Sky group”.
The insourcing is part of the UK-based parent group’s strategy to increasingly streamline the operations of Sky UK, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia across content, technology and logistics since their combination into a Europe-wide pay-TV company to benefit from synergies and cost-savings. Sky UK and Sky Italia are already using their own uplink and playout facilities, making the move to take the German operations in-house from a third-party service provider a logical step.
