Sky Group Limited is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate, which is a division of US company Comcast, and headquartered in London, England. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy. Sky is Europe's largest media company and pay-TV broadcaster by revenue, with 23 million subscribers and more than 31,000 employees as of 2019. The company is primarily involved in satellite television, producing and broadcasting. The current CEO is Dana Strong.
Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and from 2018 onwards, part of Comcast. It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster with 12.7 million customers as of end of 2019 for its digital satellite TV platform. Sky's flagship products are Sky Q and the internet-based Sky Glass, and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase, Sky Sports and Sky Atlantic.
Living TV Group was a British television consortium originally called Flextech before becoming a subsidiary of British Sky Broadcasting, with Challenge still broadcasting.
Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian satellite television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo and Sky TG24. As of 2018, following an agreement with Mediaset, Sky Italia also operates a series of subscription-based terrestrial channels offering sports, entertainment and movies. Sky Italia is also the major sports broadcaster in Italy.
Rugby league has been played in France since 1934. As with rugby union, rugby league was introduced by the English and the heartland of the game is in the south of France.
Sky Deutschland GmbH, branded as Sky, is a German media company that operates a direct broadcast satellite Pay TV platform in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It provides a collection of basic and premium digital subscription television channels of different categories via satellite and cable television.
Football365.com is a website operated by Planet Sport Publishing's Planet Sport Network that also includes TEAMtalk, Planet Football, Planet F1 Planet Rugby, Tennis365 and LoveRugbyLeague from its base in Leeds.
National Geographic is a British pay television channel that features documentaries produced by the National Geographic Society. It features some programming similar to that on the Discovery Channel such as nature and science documentaries. The channel was launched in Europe in September 1997 and time shared initially with the failing NBC Europe until NBC Europe's demise in 1998, at which point it began timesharing with Fox Kids ; with analogue transmission of the channel ending, and the sale of Fox Kids to Disney, timesharing was eventually superseded by 24-hour broadcasting. It was later launched worldwide including in Asia and the United States. Today, the channel is available in over 143 countries, seen in more than 160 million homes and in 25 languages.
365 Media Group is a now dormant sports media company that once employed over 100 people in Leeds, England and Cape Town, South Africa.
Sky Ireland Limited is a subsidiary of Comcast-owned Sky and supplies television, internet and telephony services in Ireland.
This is a list of the complete squads for the 2009 Six Nations Championship, an annual rugby union tournament contested by the national rugby teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy Scotland, and Wales. Each country was entitled to name a squad of 39 players to contest the championship. They could also invite additional players along prior to the start of the championship while the coach could call up replacement players if squad members suffered serious injury.
Aironi Rugby was an Italian professional rugby union team competing in the Pro12 and the Heineken Cup, representing the Italian regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna. It lost its status as a regional side at the end of the 2011–12 season, as the Italian Rugby Federation revoked its licence for financial reasons. They were replaced by Zebre from the 2012–13 season.
The British media company Sky UK has incurred criticism over the years, much of it centred on overcharging, anti-competitive practices, and the business practices and undue political influence of its one-time majority owner News Corporation.
The 2012 Six Nations Championship, known as the 2012 RBS 6 Nations due to the tournament's sponsorship by the Royal Bank of Scotland, was the 13th series of the Six Nations Championship. The annual northern hemisphere rugby union championship was contested by England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales.
The News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB was a proposed takeover of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) by News Corporation, the media conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch. The bid was launched in June 2010, but was withdrawn in July 2011 following the News International phone hacking scandal. News Corporation already owned 39.1% of BSkyB, and held on to its stake following the collapse of the takeover bid. The takeover was an essential part of News Corporation's business strategy, not least as it would have made possible integration with other entities such as Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. The Guardian went so far as to say that, "Without a full takeover of BSkyB, News Corp's global satellite strategy would look an unco-ordinated mess."
