Sky / BSB Merger 1990 – Media Coverage

In November 1990 Sky TV and BSB merged to form British Sky Broadcasting. It was inevitable, just like the VHS vs Betmax wars, everyone had come to the conclusion that 2 satellite networks using completely different systems just couldn’t survive. One had to go and with Sky having launched a year before, BSB was the victim. Below are 4 news reports showing how the media reported the news, the first clip is one hour after the announcement at 10pm on Sky News, the last is the following day from BBC News with Moria Stewart.

This was the press release from BskyB explaining the new combined service (click on images for larger versions)

British Sky Broadcasting (as seen by BSB viewers)

So what channels would survive?

British Sky Broadcasting (as seen by Sky TV viewers)

No real change for Sky viewers apart from some amended idents (below) and extra programming aquired from BSB’s Galaxy and Now channels

BSkyB Channel Branding – 1990