January 30, 2014

HBO sign a new Sky Atlantic exclusive deal

Still no definite news about it coming to Virgin Media customers any time soon, but Sky Atlantic has extended its deal with HBO:
Sky and HBO are to co-develop and produce new, original drama as part of an expanded partnership between the two companies. The collaboration includes an extended content output deal to ensure that Sky Atlantic remains the exclusive home of first-run HBO programmes in Britain and Ireland through 2020. [more]
One of the ironies for me of Sky Atlantic is that it missed out on many of the most popular US imports - True Blood (HBO but carriage with Fox), Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Homeland, House of Cards, Sons of Anarchy. Also, many of its original shows are now drawing to a close (Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire both ending with the next season) whilst the new shows have proven to have little appeal (with the notable exception of Game of Thrones). I still wonder how it makes money for Sky.
I once considered jumping to Sky for it, now I would rather have Netflix. Truth is, I have access to Atlantic via my NowTV box but I rarely look at it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

UK would been better if we had the HBO Nordic structure.

HBO get Premiere rights and first Internet access (and lifetime access) - mirrored and accessible Worldwide.

Sky (or anyone else) but as this is HBO and they got UK Exclusivity with Sky it Sky in this case can keep its first UK TV rights but [Sky] opening the channel to increased audience is ultimate better for advertisers!

Lovefilm, Netflix and others get after say 3/6/12 months 'bid' rights and for those who want an 'all in' general subscription.

Unknown said...

I have used Netflix, and it's great, however, this was not on virgin, it was on my Blu ray player, and it's also built into my tv, I don't need virgin for Netflix.