Sky TV will broadcast this year’s Commonwealth Games.

The broadcaster confirmed this morning it reached an agreement with TVNZ to buy the rights for the New Delhi games to be held in October.

Coverage will be available on Sky’s sport channels, free-to-air channel Prime, the internet and mobile TV.

Sky confirms that during the 12 days of competition, Prime will broadcast live coverage12 hours each day along with a daily highlights package.

Broadband will be the best way to deliver both linear and pay-per-view content in the future, SKY Television CEO John Fellet said today.

Mr Fellet said although satellite was the cheapest way to deliver video, delivering video over the internet would increase as more people used broadband in the future.

New Zealand’s sharemarket has started strongly after a third straight day of gains on Wall Street.

At about 11am the benchmark NZX50 index was up 27.587 points to 2519.211, a 1.1% gain.

Most major stocks are up, with Telecom rising 5c to $2.40, Contact Energy gaining 8c to move to $5.68 and Fletcher Building moving up 7c to $5.38.

NZX is up 13c to $5.75, Rakon is up 7c to $1.04, and TelstraClear is up 15c to $4.10.

Sky Television and Sky City are both up 4c, to $3.85 and $2.70 respectively.

Freeview customers have been dealt another blow after Mediaworks announced its much-anticipated new channel, Plus 1, would merely be a one hour delayed broadcast of TV3.

Mediaworks is obliged to provide one new channel in March 2009 and another in 2010.

While customers were initially hoping for an original content channel, or at the very least a B-grade TV3, there was also some thought there may be other documentary, sports or children’s channels.