FOREX UPDATE

A breakthrough deal between Prime broadcaster Sky, Freeview and Kordia has been successful, which means that Freeview subscribers can tune in to Prime Television from today.

With this deal, Freeview satellite and HD subscribers would be able to watch popular TV shows, including Flight of the Conchords and Top Gear, as well as the delayed broadcasts of sports matches such as All Blacks games.

From quite sometime now, Freeview has been pushing for the inclusion of Prime in its line-up, while claiming that Prime's absence had limited the take-up of the free-to-air service.

A deal had been avoided by Sky till now since it believes claiming it would not be economic to put Prime on Freeview.

With the recent development, more people should be lured on to Freeview and digital television.

According to Freeview general manager Sam Irvine, "A number of people out there have been waiting for Prime to join Freeview. There's also still a large number of people on analogue TV it's still about 40 per cent of people so now is a great time for them to move, all the major channels are on digital for free."

Already, over 250,000 homes have switched to Freeview.

Mr. Irvine said that Sky would stand to benefit from the arrangement.

He said, "We've always believed that Prime should be there as Freeview is a free-to-air digital platform they're missing out on viewers by not being there."

He concluded: "Sky would help Freeview cover its administration and marketing costs as part of the deal, but he would not confirm this would cost Sky $350,000 over three years, as previously reported by The Dominion Post."