In a rare move, UK pay-TV provider Sky has taken control of its mobile inventory, and will sell mobile ads around its content across T-Mobile and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) portals, to give advertisers a “single buying point on Sky,” Tim Hussian, Sky’s recently appointed head of mobile, told NMA.co.uk. Sky, which rolls out its first ads this week from advertisers Fiat and Adidas, is also trying to hash out the same deals with Britain’s three other operators, O2, Orange and Three.

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Content owners generally leave the selling of mobile ads against their content to the mobile networks, who themselves outsource to ad networks - in the case of T-Mobile and Vodafone, to Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Sky is one of the few content owners to have managed to wring control from the carriers. If more content owners decide to go it alone, carriers will be weakened in their ability to offer one-stop-shop ad services, so other content providers will be watching the deal closely for signs on whether they can follow suit.

“If you let operators control them, the multiple sales points are confusing for buyers and fragment our audience,” Andrea Kilbourne, MD of mobile at publisher Bauer, told NMA. Andrew Nichols, head of mobile at Dennis Publishing, said it is frustrating to have no control over CPMs, advertisers or reporting around on-portal content. But Vodafone head of mobile advertising Shan Henderson said he had no problem with providers who wanted “to pursue their own path” and “was happy to negotiate terms with other content providers wishing to sell their own ads.”