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Sky follows BBC's VR push with interactive experience, app relaunch

British pay TV giant Sky plc is the latest broadcaster to announce a major push into virtual reality, as European media companies increasingly step up efforts to tap into the emerging technology's potential.

Sky unveiled March 7 the spring launch of VR experience Hold The World in partnership with London's Natural History Museum and veteran broadcaster David Attenborough, as part of the relaunch of its Sky VR app on Google Daydream View, Samsung Gear VR and Facebook Inc.'s Oculus Rift.

The experience, Sky's first fully interactive production, marks the "next phase" of its VR development.

The company's VR initiative uses interactive video game and TV documentary technology to allow viewers to virtually follow a 3D hologram of Attenborough through the Natural History Museum, allowing them to explore parts of the collection normally closed to the public.

Hold The World, commissioned by the Sky VR Studio, was produced by immersive content studio Factory 42 with VR studio Dream Reality Interactive and content producer Talesmith.

Sky said the Sky VR app relaunch would also usher in new VR content, including access to soccer matches, 3D holograms of British boxer Anthony Joshua in action and original scripted content.

The VR platform follows the recent introduction by British public service broadcaster BBC of a VR app on the Oculus Gear VR store, featuring documentary series "Damming The Nile VR."

It also follows a March 7 report on the U.K.'s digital strategy by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in which the British government revealed plans to equip more museums, galleries, theaters and heritage organizations with more digital technology to reach new and younger audiences.

Commitments outlined in the report include a £2 million Cultural Development Fund, announced in 2017, to support the use of digital tools in the creative industries.

"Digital technology is breaking down the silos within the cultural sector and blurring the lines between disciplines," Culture Secretary Matt Hancock said at the launch of the report.

The U.K. currently accounts for 5% of the immersive reality market, which is expected to reach £100 billion globally by 2020, according to the report.

Hancock said: "Increasingly, theater blends with film; computer programming merges with sculpture. We have virtual reality curatorship, animated artworks and video games scored by classical music composers."

With greater use of digital tools, cultural experiences will become "more accessible and engaging than ever," he said.