News out of England is that Sky TV has announced a true Over The Top product that does not require buying into a traditional satellite subscription.

A quote from the official announcement:

“This exciting new service will offer some of Sky’s most popular content through a wide range of broadband connected devices. Alongside the continued growth of our satellite platform, this will be a new way for us to reach out to consumers who love great content, but may not want the full Sky service. Bringing a distinctive, new choice to the marketplace will help us meet the needs and demands of an ever wider range of consumers.”

The key point is in bold.  Sky is going to offer a broadband only viewing service that is not tied to their core broadcast service.  This is the exactly the path other services are going to consider to slide into the hearts and minds of the cable-cutters.

Looks like Sky has decided that if someone is going to eat their lunch, it might as well be themselves.  Other takes on the news at Engadget and the Wall Street Journal.

With the US based DirecTV crossbred with Murdoch DNA in the past, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them attempt a similar product to distance themselves further from the cable focus on TV Everywhere.