Little-known Fetch TV is hardly major-league distribution for Sky’s channels. But Sky is unable to do true pull-VOD on its main satellite Sky+ HD box until it begins offering download via their Ethernet ports later this year. So Fetch, Xbox, Windows Media Centre, the web-based Sky Player and smartphone apps are each part of a multi-pronged approach.

The Sky channels Fetch viewers can get with mirror those available in satellite customers’ bouquets, but Fetch customers can subscribe on contracts with just a one-month minimum term. That’s a significant experiment in opening up for Sky.

This all points the way Sky is going - long favouring its own satellite distribution gateway over others, it’s now tentatively embracing platforms like Freeview, channels from which Fetch TV delivers over an integrated DTT chip. Sky even told the BBC Trust last week: “The most realistic assumptions are that Sky‟s premium channels are available via Canvas boxes and DTT.” It even fancies carrying BBC show on its Sky Player, though not the entire iPlayer.

The lesson here - there may end up being as much value in Sky’s content as there is in its distribution backbone.

Fetch TV won’t be the final step in Sky’s story. Its £219 boxes are available in John Lewis, Carphone Warehouse and Currys. In a briefing in December, Eddie Abrams, CEO of Fetch’s IP Vision holding company, told me he couldn’t divulge the installed base “until we’ve had a run on retail”. “It’s in a significant number of homes,” he said.

Fetch’s SmartBoxes are HD-ready and offer live Freeview, a PVR, media sharing, movie rentals from studio partners and VOD from BBC iPlayer, 4OD, Sky Player, Discovery Channel, CNN. They’re technically smart and open, able to play from and record to networked hard drives and USB sticks. The Fetch TV brand may not do too much on its own, but it could be a useful option to others, as telcos consider a Canvas entry next year.

Meanwhile, Fetch may have Sky Player, but it’s awaiting a BBC Trust review in to the BBC’s iPlayer syndication policy. The trust last year said the BBC was justified in declining to help IP Vision build a Fetch-specific iPlayer implementation that would have been closely integrated with SmartBoxes’ own software. But the trust is reviewing new guidelines the BBC implemented in the wake of its decision, which left Fetch TV for now using the same Big Screen HTML iPlayer available on Wii, Playstation etc.