SKY Italia, Italy’s leading pay-TV platform which broadcasts exclusively from Eutelsat’s HOT BIRD™ neighbourhood, reached an impressive four million subscribers at the end of 2006, or an equivalent of over 12 million viewers, not including the millions who watch SKY Italia in hotels, and other commercial venues. SKY Italia says that this places the Italian platform as the third largest in Europe and the fastest in terms of growth rate. The Eurisko-Audistar 2006 survey, which measures the size and characteristics of satellite TV audiences, found that Italy’s satellite pay-TV market grew by 8% last year.

SKY Italia leases 18 transponders on the HOT BIRD™ satellites to broadcast over 160 TV and radio channels, including four HD channels. The HD channels, dedicated to movies, sport and general entertainment, are broadcast in DVB-S2, with MPEG4 compression in a single HOT BIRD™ transponder.