Sky digital offer to Members and Clubs

BSkyB and the ECB have announced special offers on Sky digital subscriptions exclusively for ECB affiliated cricket clubs and members of first class and minor County clubs.

The offers follow the award to Sky Sports of exclusive live rights to international and domestic county cricket in England and Wales, for seasons 2006 to 2009.

These special offers are:

· MEMBERS - All members of first class counties, minor counties, and the MCC will be eligible for special offers. New subscribers can get Sky Sports free for 12 months when they subscribe to any Sky digital package; paying as little as £15 per month for all five Sky Sports channels. Existing subscribers to Sky digital can upgrade their set-top box to Sky+ for free when they take a Multi-room subscription for £10 per month. The set-top box, mini-dish and standard installation are free and the offers are open until the end of April 2006.

· CLUBS - Sky are offering a special offer to all ECB affiliated clubs. The offer allows affiliated clubs to show the full range of Sky Sports programming in their clubhouses and pavilions for the reduced rate of just £90 per calendar month. The set-top box, mini-dish and standard installation are free.

ECB Chief Executive David Collier said: “I think this is an outstanding deal for clubs and county members and one that could also form part of a membership drive by counties. We are extremely pleased with the offer from Sky which will enable cricket followers to subscribe to Sky Sports for £15 per month. We are also grateful for Sky’s continued and loyal support of cricket.”

Robert Tansey, Sky’s Director of Sports Marketing, said: “These are special deals purely for the clubs and their members. When we were awarded a new contract for live cricket last year we promised a good offer to clubs and their members. We are sure they will be pleased with the deal we have delivered and delighted with our live coverage over the next four years.”

Sky Sports have exclusive live rights to all international and domestic cricket in England and Wales from 2006-2009. Coverage will include exclusively live coverage of every Test and One-Day International and exclusively live coverage from each of the domestic competitions.

Sky Sports have also followed England live every winter and will show each of the five One-Day Internationals and 3 Test matches exclusively live from Pakistan this winter. Next winter the Ashes tour will also be exclusively live on Sky Sports.

Sky Sports also features live coverage of; Barclays Premiership, UEFA Champions League and Coca-Cola League football; international, European and domestic Rugby Union; Super League and tri Nations Rugby League and live golf from the PGA European Tour, US PGA Tour, US Open, PGA Championship and Ryder Cup.

To take up one of these offers, new domestic subscribers should call 08701 942 074, existing domestic subscribers should call 08702 403 479, and Clubs should call Sky Business on 08702 40 40 30 - quoting ‘Company offers/ECB.’

Notes

MEMBERS

Standard prices - The standard price for subscription to the five Sky Sports channels, and a range of other programming, through Sky digital is £34 per calendar month.

Sky Multi-room - Enjoy all the same great channels you get with your main Sky TV subscription on another TV in the same home; you can watch cricket in one room whilst another family member watches Sky News, for example, in another room.

Sky + is a digital video recorder and receiver in one; it lets you record and store your favourite programmes so you can watch them whenever you like. You can even pause and rewind live TV and with over 40 hours of recording time you will always have something you want to watch.

CLUBS

The channel packages available from Sky Business for clubs are:

1 - Sky Entertainment Package with Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2, plus Sky Sports 3 as a bonus channel and Sky Sports Xtra as an additional channel - £90

2 - Sky Entertainment Package with Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2 & Sky Movies 1, plus Sky Sports 3 as bonus channel and Sky Sports Xtra as additional channel - £95