BSkyB, widely regarded as the most aggressively commercial broadcaster in Britain, will today take another step to boost its public service credentials as the debate about the BBC's modern role intensifies.
The organisation is expected to announce a commitment to world cinema, the first time it has invested in this commercially unattractive field outside its big studio deals.
Last week it announced a £3m three-year deal to sponsor English National Opera.
These are relatively insignificant moves for an organisation with a turnover of £3.1bn last year, but Rupert Murdoch's operation appears to be embarking on a strategy to reposition itself in the public and political consciousness.
Today the Sky Networks boss, Dawn Airey, and her head of acquisitions, Sophie Turner-Laing, will use a lunch at the fashionable Ivy restaurant in central London to announce a relaunch of its movie channels, which are second only to the sports channels in importance to Sky's business.
As part of that, Sky is expected to say that world movies will be given a regular slot on its Sky Cinema 1 channel, with two films on Saturday nights at 8pm, repeated on Wednesdays at 8pm. Movies to be screened in November and December will include the British television premieres of Y Tu Mama Tambien, as well as Amores Perros and Asoka. Classics such as La Dolce Vita, Betty Blue and Danton will also be screened.
Sky will also premiere films that have enjoyed only limited theatre release in Britain, such as Goodbye Lenin, the German-language movie tipped to win an Oscar for best foreign film. Ms Airey and Ms Turner-Laing are likely to contrast Sky's move with the decision of Channel 4 to drop its Film Four World subscription channel earlier this year.
The announcement is the latest in a series of manoeuvres to strengthen Sky's public service credentials. It was already able to claim that its Sky News channel provides an important public service, with a free quality news channel that attracts more viewers than BBC News 24.
Then, in August, it rescued the highbrow digital channel Artsworld by taking a 50% stake in the business, after the Guardian Media Group, owner of the Guardian, pulled out.
Last week Sky and Artsworld revealed the sponsorship deal with the ENO, which is back in its revamped home at the Coliseum in London.
These moves would in future allow Sky to argue that it is fit to take over Channel Five, a scenario that would now be legal following this year's Communications Act.
It would also make it easier for Sky to claim that the private sector is just as capable as the BBC of providing marginal and special-interest services. This would be tricky for the BBC: one of the key planks in the corporation's argument to retain the licence fee at the current level, when its royal charter comes up for renewal in 2006, is that it provides services ignored by commercial broadcasters.
The charter renewal debate is already under way in earnest. The new regulator, Ofcom, is starting a wide-ranging review of public service broadcasting in Britain; legislation to renew the BBC's charter must be introduced well before 2006.
John Whittingdale, the Tory culture spokesman, last week called for the BBC to scrap its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, and to license its brands to outside companies for exploitation.
