* Photo: Donald Milne * Media can't be too fast or too rich. Four years ago, James Murdoch, second son of you-know-who, took over as executive director of British Sky Broadcasting — better known as Sky in the UK, where nearly one in three households subscribes to its flagship satellite TV service. Over the past year, Murdoch, 34, has led the company in an $800 million bid to complement Sky's high-flying television circus with a screaming-fast DSL broadband network. The result: a unique engine for channeling both content and interactivity, whatever size the screen. Wired dropped into Sky's studio-lot head quarters west of London to learn about a bitfest Americans can only dream of.
Wired: Sky began as a satellite TV provider, optimized for pumping out the opiate of the UK masses — English Premier League soccer. Now it's also a high-end ISP. What happened?
Murdoch: Shifts in the regulatory environment let us reach homes cost-effectively with a next-gen network. Customers wanting more and more bandwidth is a trend we're willing to bet on.
Wired: Your top Net-access speed is an ultrafast 24 Mbps. With a data rate like that, who needs satellites?
Murdoch: Not everyone can get that right away — in most areas, our current limit is 16 Mbps. But broadly, it's a question of matching the right content to the right distribution channel. Satellites are good for delivering data-intensive hi-def content, like live sports, to mass audiences. The broadband network backs that up, especially for customers who want more choice and control over what they watch and when. For the same reason, we're ramping up a new generation of IP-enabled set-top boxes that have big hard disks. And there's Sky Anytime on Mobile — our content, but pushed out through the wireless carriers.
Wired: Sounds like the "triple play."
Murdoch: Not at all. It's a single set of services, which we believe will become increasingly indistinguishable. People are going to be pulling content off the Net. They're going to want to pass it around, watch it on their laptop, view it on their PSP — we just signed a deal with Sony to do that. And not just our content. Everything.
Wired: You've got an unusual deal with Google — not only online ad sales but also Sky-branded versions of Gmail and other services.
Murdoch: It goes well beyond that. We're working together to bring Internet-style ad targeting to television.
Wired: Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that big bandwidth "changes the definition of how people use Google." How far do you see that going?
Murdoch: Customers have essentially limitless choice. The question is no longer navigating all that content, it's what do I do with it: time-shift it, share it, cut it up into pieces, interact with it and make it my own. Control becomes important.
Wired: PCs are already pretty good at that, no?
Murdoch: When broadband is linked to a set-top box and a wireless router — that's built into our package — you can do a huge amount of seamless integration. The electronic program ming guide we've designed doesn't distinguish between things you've stored to the hard disk and what's coming through the broadcast stream. We want to deliver the whole mix.
Wired: A lot of that mix will be user-generated. Isn't that a threat to traditional television?
Murdoch: It isn't a threat. It's an opportunity. Today's user- generated content is getting big audiences. It also has great utility — Sky News is mixing in on-the-scene clips from viewer's cell phones, for instance.
Wired: Sky has a strong mobile presence without owning a wireless carrier. What's the trick?
Murdoch: Everyone thought it was going to be mobisodes, casual gaming, and things people can snack on. But if you look at the usage patterns, it's what we already have: sports and news.
Wired: So where do we sign up?
Murdoch: Unfortunately, the US telcos have successfully resisted opening up the local loop, which makes reaching homes far more costly. And US geography is much more challenging. The customer base is too spread out.
Wired: Would you want your dad's job?
Murdoch: I think we should probably stop right here.
Wired: Does the word mogul make you cringe?
Murdoch: Not at all. I'm an enthusiastic skier. Moguls are fun.
