At its September results briefing this morning, Telecom Retail chief executive Alan Gourdie said his company was talking to Sky TV about becoming a possible iSky partner.

Sky TV’s new iSky service, launching by Christmas, will provide TV programmes and movies on-demand, delivered to a MySky HDi box via broadband.

A raft of ISP partners were recently announced for iSky – but Telecom, whose retail division holds around 57% share in the home broadband market, was conspicuously absent.

At the time, it was assumed that Telecom was protecting its relationship with TiVo, which offers a similar content over-broadband service, called Caspa.

Mr Gourdie told NBR that if Telecom does reach an arrangement with Sky TV, it will continue with TiVo (whose parent company, Hybrid TV, is one third owned by TVNZ).

“Our relationship with TiVo allows us to expand into other services, such as Sky TV, if we choose,” Mr Gourdie said.

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Sky TV chief executive John Fellet has previously told NBR his company is willing to partner with any ISP willing to offer an umetered data plan for iSky.

The iSky partners already announced are Vodafone, Slingshot (the retail arm of CallPlus), Orcon, Xnet, Woosh and Farmside.

Mid-morning, Telecom (NZX: TEL) was trading down 1.9% to $2.07.

Sky TV (NZX: SKT) was flat at $5.49.