British Satellite Broadcasting: the Beginning of the End

Entrepreneur search Paper Adriel McBride DeVry University December 17, 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 3 Abstract 3 History potty BSB 4Reasons for Failure 5 Analysis 7 Works Cited 10 British Satellite send The starting of the end IntroductionMany companies fail within the archetyp each(prenominal)y two years of opening, according to small business political science which is seven out of ten, and 51 percent last at least five years. Starting a business is not an easy task, there are tons of things that have to d adept in identify for it to be around for more than a couple of months or years. Unfortunately, thats the case with the keep company I chose, British Satellite Broadcasting. Abstract British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) set out to establish a television company that provided direct airing to television services from a satellite to the United Kingdom.Which it did from 1977-1990 and had its first charge on March 25, 1990, most of the time was used towards cre ating a policy to have British be able to broadcast via satellite (Holden, 1998). The company had to merge with slash Television in November of 1990 to plant the British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyBs). History behind BSB In 1977 the development of British satellite broadcast policy started, a meeting was held at the World Administration Radio Conference for a comprehend for the division of broadcasting frequencies.During the meeting the administration as sign each country five high-powered transmit for direct broadcast by satellite for domestic use. In 1982 BSB was awarded with two channels through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and in 1983 it started to negotiate with the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to join a joint-venture with other countries and start a joint satellite service further failed in 1985 (Holden, 1998). It was said that the government insisted that the BBC should net income for the cost of constructing and raiseing a dedicated satellite. T he hearing concluding in 1992, which followed the Conservative Partys quartetteth consecutive election victory and BSkyBs successful, momentous bid for the rights to screen live slope Premier League football matches (Holden, 1998). The BSB had integrity main competitor which was Sky broadcasting, it had an advantage over BSB and prove that its system gave sufficient picture quality and many viewers didnt want to wait on a promise that was vowed by BSB for excellent programming. Many customers compared the contest between the rival satellite companies to the data formatting war between VHS and Betamax home video recorders and chose to wait and see which company would win outright as opposed to buying potentially outdated equipment (Holden, 1998). BSB mission was to create a satellite dish to broadcast high quality television programming for the British and hopefully expand to other countries. The reason BSB failed toilette be related to a lot of things but mostly capital. Befor e BSB and Sky merged, Sky debuted first which hurt BSB, Sky provide a cheaper dish, which do it even more difficult for BSB.In January 1989 BSB experienced higher(prenominal) than expected cost that were required to achieve their planned air date. That caused them to push impale their fall launch date. This resulted in delays for developing a in the all semiconductor chip required for its satellite dish receivers, which brocaded their cost to ? 131 million (Holden, 1998). Many say that if BSB would have launched first they could possibly still be around. Sky and BSB were in financial trouble and after BSB collapsed in November 1990, they were forced to merge.That is how the BSkyB came some, no more BSB it was over and a unused company had begun which was marketed as Sky TV. Reasons for Failure British Satellite Broadcast failed for a soma of reasons one was the lack of financial stability and commitment. BSB was spending millions of dollars on equipment for receivers so they can be operable for purchase. But they were slacking in the production department because they needed more money to make veritable they had quality programming but missed their deadline. By the time they finally launched slew had already dour to the competition because they were tired of waiting.When a promise is made to consumers its best for the company to do everything in their power to oblige them or otherwise they will lose their support and money. Thats exactly what happened with BSB they were focused on quality which was corking but couldnt provide it in a timely matter. Their competition offered a cheaper product and adequate quality which was bump than nothing. The merge only helped Sky stay animated and killed BSB because they in additionk all of BSB quality equipment and satellites and created something great.But if BSB would have kept their commitment/ launch date it could have been a contrasting outcome today. So it kind of boils down to customer satisfaction, which is always a big part of a business success. When BSB couldnt make good on their promise it reflected badly on the company and made their consumers wonder if they were really up for the challenge. For example take a gamer that is anxiously waiting for a new Xbox game console to come out and is schedule for release in May but is pushed back to August, a lot of loyal customers will be let down and possibly twirl to PlayStation which new console came out when vowed.They may not lose a lot of of customers but it could cause a ripple effect for the ones that did chose to get a PlayStation instead. That is what happened with BSB, they had satisfied customers when they finally launched but not enough to harbour them in business. Another thing that caused them to fail was not having the sufficient operating funds. The owners didnt estimate how much(prenominal) money they would need to accomplish what they set out to do. It is always important to know how much money your business wi ll necessitate, that includes the starting cost and staying a business.That was not well executed when the owners of BSB started the company which was a major cause of why it failed. Too much money being put into the company but not enough coming in. They had major financial issues they caused them to basically turn over their business to their competitor. That is never how an entrepreneur plans their business to turn out especially a few years after starting. epoch a lot of people were still happy with the 5 channels that they had globally, a lot of people were also tired of having only 5 possible things to watch and so they got Sky as in short as it was available.As it turned out, ascorbic acids of thousands of people got Sky before BSB even launched (William, 2011). Most of the people who were interested in having a greater choice of channels had already opted for Sky. There was hardly anyone who still cute a DBS system left for BSB to sell their service to. As a result, BSB l aunched with only a few hundred systems installed, and never really increased beyond that. The real cause of their failure can probably be laid at the door of the IBA.While they never intended for BSB to fail, they locked BSB into a contract to build and launch satellites, put through new picture systems which were not standard in the UK (and still arent today) and do other things which Sky were not required to do (Holden, 1998). This resulted in severe hold ups which allowed Sky to eat up almost all of the market that BSB was aimed at. While BSB were busy launching satellites and awaiting delivery of MAC equipment, Sky had launched and was building up a growing customer base (Holden, 1998).Analysis BSB could still be around if it wasnt for the IBA contract and making surreal goals. If BSB would have started out with a less expensive product they could probably still be in business. They wanted too much too fast, the best quality and products that cost some big bucks that they did not have. Therefore it hurt them, a better plan and team would have set them above the rest. intermit planning in general could have prevented the business from failing. They could have cut out every needless expense and reduce the expenses. Became a saver with cash and collect every dime owed to them.Finally they could have started exchange their products and service at a discounted price until they built up a loyal customer base. If the entrepreneur would have recognized the company was failing before it was too late, he could have taken actions to turn around the business. The business owners and leaders should have taken every action necessary to first carry through their own interests and salvage/protect personal assets associated with the company. Protecting the business assets is critical for survival of any company. The creative thinker of satellite broadcasting was great but not well implemented nor calculated.BSB wanted to give customers better than what they were re ceiving from the competitor but didnt go about it the right way. They started off spending way too much money and still coming up short. When developing a new product it takes lashings of inputs such as money, skills, energy etc. that is supposed to add value to their product output (Hatten, 2009). The four major functions of managing a business is planning, organizing, leading, and controlling (Hatten, 2009). Within those four boundaries BSB went wrong with at least three which were planning, organizing, and leading.I didnt choose controlling because they really had no control of their project because of the IBA. If they would have never signed the contract with IBA and stayed with the BBC things could have turned out differently. IBA demanded services that BSB just couldnt provide. Even with that being the case, if the entrepreneur was better at leading he could have had a strategic plan to keep his company alive while pleasing the IBA as well. That could have been done by tryin g to develop one of the requirements at a time. The best thing to do would have been to get working satellite receivers on the market.Then see how well they do by getting feedback from the consumers and find out what could be done to remediate the service and products. After they obtained enough information on what was wrong with the prototypes that was first released they could start improving the devices and making it available for sale and send an upgrade device to the customers that already had a receiver. Sometimes its about taking a chance with a bad product versus failing as company altogether and putting out a few bad receivers. There are tons of companies that started off awful but still made a profit and are now at the top.For instance hyphen Wireless, everyone including myself hated their phones and service back in the 1990s but now in 2012 they are one of the top cellphone providers. They accomplished that by staying afloat during the rough patches and critiquing ther e services and products. BSB simply wanted to be the best and provide excellent programming and quality but didnt plan accordingly. Having a great plan and knowing how to execute it can be what makes a business succeed. BSB had a great plan but just couldnt meet the expectations.Sometimes less is more, if they would have started a little littler and worked its way up I believe Britains would be watching British Satellite Broadcasting instead of Sky TV. Works Cited Brown, M. (2009). Sky tvs launch a wing and a prayer . Blog, Retrieved from http//www. guardian. co. uk/media/organgrinder/2009/feb/04/sky-tv-early-years Pnakaj, G. (1997). Entry and deterrence in British satellite broadcasting. The mitt press. Retrieved from http//people. stern. nyu. edu/abranden/EntryAndDeterrenceBritishSatellite. pdf Hatten, T. (2009). Small business management. (4 ed. , p. 460 536).Boston, MA Houghton Mifflin Company. Holden, W. (1998). The history and development of british satellite broadcasting poli cy, 1977-1992. (Masters thesis)Retrieved from http//etheses. whiterose. ac. uk/552/2/holden_1998. pdf Feder, B. (1990, December 20). Murdochs time of reckoning. New york times. Retrieved from http//www. nytimes. com/1990/12/20/business/murdoch-s-time-of-reckoning. hypertext markup language Williams, G. (2011, March 2). News corporation and bskyb What price remedies? Campaign for press and broadcasting freedom. Retrieved from http//www. cpbf. org. uk/body. php? id=2462&selpanel=1