BRITISH Sky Broadcasting, the satellite television venture, plans to offer fast access to the Internet through conventional television sets when it launches its digital satellite television service next year.

The company, which is controlled by Mr Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, hopes that broadcasting large amounts of information to the home as well as 200 to 300 channels of television, will help persuade consumers to buy the digital "black box" decoders needed to receive the service.

"The decoders will have the computing power of an average PC and a very fast modem," a BSkyB executive said yesterday.

The aim is to deliver information services direct to the television screen rather than just to PCs.

BSkyB, which earlier this week announced pre tax profits of £257 million sterling for the year to the end of June, wants the decoders to be in the shops by September 1997 and for one million to be made in the first year.

It is likely to cost more than £250 million to produce the decoders. The company hopes that the digital systems, including much smaller satellite dishes than are needed with existing analogue satellite television, will sell for about £200.

This is likely to be about half the true retail cost at the outset. The confidential specifications sent out to decoder manufacturers last month included the requirement for what should be the world's most advanced digital satellite set top box.

The modem to be included in the decoder to link the viewer automatically to the digital satellite by telephone is the fastest that can be used with conventional phone lines.

BSkyB plans to offer two separate Internet services to viewers as well as home banking, home shopping and other interactive services.

It will broadcast the most popular Internet sites regularly to digital dish owners so that the information can then be used by viewers.

It will also be possible to use the modem and telephone to access more specialist Internet sites. The system will also enable consumers to connect audio systems, printers and PCs to the digital decoder.

The group has been negotiating with possible partners such as British Telecommunications, Barclays Bank and Matsushita, the Japanese consumer electronics group.

It wants such organisations to provide initial subsidies for the decoders to kickstart the market in return for being allowed to run home shopping, home banking and other services.