BSkyB has been renamed as Sky after it completed its £7bn acquisition of Sky Italia and purchase of a majority stake in Sky Deutschland.
The newly-formed group has a total programming spend of £4.6bn and will serve 20 million customers across five countries – Italy, Germany, Austria, the UK and Ireland.
Sky is eying subscriber gains it can make from the 60m homes yet to subscribe to pay-TV services across its markets, while it also believes there is an opportunity to launch new products and services.
Sky paid £2.45bn in cash for Sky Italia and £4.4bn for almost 90% of Sky Deutschland.
Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch becomes group chief executive and will oversee the enlarged group as well as continuing to head the UK and Ireland operations. Andrea Zappia and Brian Sullivan remain in charge of Sky Italia and Deutschland respectively.
Darroch said the businesses would perform “better together”.
“Customers will benefit as we launch exciting new services, bring them even more great TV and accelerate innovation across all of the markets in which we operate,” he added.
“By joining together, we will share our strengths and expertise while retaining a strong identity in each country where we operate.”
The move follows the acquisition of Virgin Media by US cable operator Liberty Global for £10.2bn in February 2013.
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