Spark Sport

Sky TV has finally started the rollout of its new Sky Pod today - but a conspicuous absence: It does not offer live access to TVNZ's broadcast channels.

Another difference: The Sky Pod receives TV channels via UFB fibre broadband rather than the satellite dish used by the Sky Box. TVNZ also pulled its content from Freeview’s collectively run on-demand platform - effectively delivering it a death sentence. In this case, we haven’t found a way forward that suits both TVNZ and Sky.” Keeping its channels from the Sky Pod is the latest in a series of hard-nosed moves by TVNZ. “We haven’t come to an arrangement for TVNZ channels to be retransmitted via IP on the Sky Pod TV Guide,” a TVNZ spokeswoman told the Herald. Sky TV is in the process of releasing two new bits of hardware: Its new Sky Box ($200 upfront), which will be the replacement for the current decoder for most Sky customers, and the trimmed-down Sky Pod ($100 upfront), which is aimed at the up to 100,000 people who used to use Vodafone TV.