further to NORMANTHEDOG's answer, I think that the use of Sky outside the UK is not entirely legal. It's possible to pick the signal up, but the sattelite's 'footprint' is only designed for the UK.
I'm no expert, but I think European copyright laws come into efffect here somewhere.
Sky tend not to care too much since they're getting a subscription fee from the foreign bars/homeowners anyway.
In the Canaries (which is very much on the edge of the footprint of signal, and not officially part of the EU), there are companies that have large reciver dishes to get the signal from the Sky (BSkyB?) sattelites, then relay it through their own systems to subscribers.
Hence, when any bad weather comes across, the picture gets ******. The signal is weak there, so any atmopspheric interference ******* it completely