BSkyB
Background
BSkyB – which operates the Sky family of sports, entertainment and news channels, with UK audiences topping 10 million – was looking for a partner to manage all their SMS interactivity needs, from premium shortcode management right through to creative consulting to help engage audiences via the new medium.
Objectives
Sky are long established pioneers of the interactive model of television viewing through their red-button services. It was therefore essential that their mobile partner could provide not only easy-to-use tools for busy producers across the organisation, but also a system flexible enough to integrate technically with their existing red button, email and web infrastructure.
Activities
For the past 4 years we have managed BSkyB’s 7 dedicated shortcodes in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, providing SMS support for their flagship channels, including Sky News and Sky Sports.
Producers and operational staff across the organisation use our Producer tool on a daily basis to create and run new interactive events on the fly. We provide operational support around the clock for well over a thousand individual activities a year.
Following a joint effort with Sky’s Broadcast Computing Team, we have also produced a range of automated tools which allow them to remotely manage campaigns on our platform and automatically integrate data from SMS activities with their own web and red button systems.
Finally, we maintain a direct relationship with the Sky Sports production team, and in monthly meetings work together to identify the latest interactive successes and failures, and how to get the best out of the developing medium on an ongoing basis.
The Upstream team understood what our clients wanted and knew exactly how to deliver it 
BSkyB – which operates the Sky family of sports, entertainment and news channels, with UK audiences topping 10 million – was looking for a partner to manage all their SMS interactivity needs, from premium shortcode management right through to creative consulting to help engage audiences via the new medium.
Sky are long established pioneers of the interactive model of television viewing through their red-button services. It was therefore essential that their mobile partner could provide not only easy-to-use tools for busy producers across the organisation, but also a system flexible enough to integrate technically with their existing red button, email and web infrastructure.
For the past 4 years we have managed BSkyB’s 7 dedicated shortcodes in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, providing SMS support for their flagship channels, including Sky News and Sky Sports.
Producers and operational staff across the organisation use our Producer tool on a daily basis to create and run new interactive events on the fly. We provide operational support around the clock for well over a thousand individual activities a year.
Following a joint effort with Sky’s Broadcast Computing Team, we have also produced a range of automated tools which allow them to remotely manage campaigns on our platform and automatically integrate data from SMS activities with their own web and red button systems.
Finally, we maintain a direct relationship with the Sky Sports production team, and in monthly meetings work together to identify the latest interactive successes and failures, and how to get the best out of the developing medium on an ongoing basis.