One lucky Sky subscriber in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire has been revealed as Sky’s one millionth customer within a Sky enabled block of flats, and has been given a free Sky World package for the next year as recognition of this achievement by the company.
A significant milestone for Sky, one million customers represents over 10 years of providing Communal Solutions with specialist teams across the UK for landlords, managing agents and developers. In the last three years as part of the digital switch over Sky has helped blocks of flats receive digital TV by way of providing subsidies for communal systems to their managing agents.
When Kim Cleaver, who lives in the Canada Fields development in Broxbourne, learnt of being the millionth customer she was delighted at her luck, ‘This is amazing and actually great timing as I’m about to have an operation which includes six weeks recovery time. This is going to make it far more bearable!
‘I’ve had Sky for years now, but there was a period of a year when we didn’t have it and I almost considered moving house! When we had the communal dish installed it was really straightforward and we live in a pretty block of flats, so it was great to get rid of all the other dishes.’
Craig Stevens, from Warwick Estates which manages the block of flats adds, ‘This block is one of 24 on the Canada Fields development with 400 flats in total. When we took over this development, there were 50 or 60 dishes around the development of different shapes and sizes and it didn’t look great. We’ve worked with Sky many times over the years and so it made much more sense to have one Sky dish per block, and we’ve also managed to save the residents some money too.’
AVUK, who fitted the system, have worked with Sky for over 10 years in the South East area and have installed over 5,000 systems in that time.
Brendan Hegarty, Head of Sky Communal TV, comments on the milestone, ‘Our one millionth customer is a fantastic reminder to us of what we have achieved as a business and our leadership position in the marketplace. Our communal solutions are synonymous with quality and an ease of installation, and that needs to filter right down to the resident, who ultimately will dictate our success. We are now looking forward to reaching the two million customer milestone!’
Sky Communal Solutions is the Sky department responsible for installing Sky TV systems in flats, whether for the private sector, social sector or new build developments. It has established a well-deserved reputation in the industry for high quality installations – be that providing upgrades or replacements to existing systems, working on single blocks or entire property portfolios, or helping developers on the complete installation for brand new builds.
Sky offers two main types of communal TV system, the platform neutral Integrated Reception System (IRS) and the competitively priced Shared Dish system, each of which come with a range of leasing options and subsidies respectively.