Sky have finally reacted to the growing threat from Freeview to their core pay television business, by announcing plans to launch a pay service on the same platform later this year.

By withdrawing their current three channel contribution to Freeview, consisting of Sky Three, Sky News, and Sky Sports News, Sky's scheme is to use the space to provide a new four channel service offering premiership football, and more. By switching to the newer MPEG4 compression standard they'll be able to squeeze more channels into the same space, but they'll also be preventing any users with existing boxes from accessing the service, meaning they'll have to convince people to buy new equipment. They'll also be in direct competition with Top Up TV, who are already trying to sell their own "Anytime" service with their own proprietary PVR, and their own premiership football courtesy of Setanta.

For Freeview viewers who don't want to subscribe to any of this (possibly the majority), it will mean the loss of one entertainment channel and two news channels - which, let's face it, could be worse. There's a press release here.