HBO struggles weaken Sky Atlantic

Sky Atlantic is, according to some, the great content differentiator between the TV packages from Sky and Virgin Media. Virgin customers have never had the channel and those hungry for HBO and Showcase content have to either invest in Sky’s 720p NowTV Entertainment package (and, in doing so, may wonder why they fork out so much for Virgin TV each month) or dip into the murky depths of dodgy downloads. With NowTV the clamour for Atlantic on VM has died down; I have it but jump in and out of the service depending on what’s showing on Atlantic. This month I’m in for Game of Thrones, having just watched Vinyl. But the only other show scheduled for this year I’m interested in is the final season of The Leftovers. And after that? HBO, and therefore Sky Atlantic, is looking pretty bare.
I’m not the only one thinking this. Here’s a report from The Guardian that makes a similar observation, and industry watcher Hollywood Reporter has raised the alarm too: Game of Thrones apart, HBO is on the ropes. The new content kings in town are Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, whilst US cable network AMC has a more impressive track record of late (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, The Walking Dead series and the forthcoming Preacher) and that’s now tied to BT in the UK (some Sky customers get just the SD version and no OnDemand).
I don’t doubt that Sky will flash more cash and buy up more content if HBO continues to fail to deliver popular series, but it’s not the channel it was and, Game of Thrones apart, it’s looking less of a gaping hole on my TiVo’s EPG.
What does everyone else think?

Sky Atlantic adds Showtime shows to its 'exclusives' roster

Not content with signing HBO up as exclusive to the channel, Sky Atlantic has now announced it's also tied up Showcase with a similar deal, depriving Virgin Media customers of further US cable hits. 

“This is one of the most important content deals Sky has ever agreed, cementing Sky’s position as the market-leader in Europe for world-class drama,” said Sky Content boss Gary Davey.
“The agreement means our customers can enjoy an incredible slate of upcoming new dramas like Billions, Twin Peaks and also explore hundreds of hours of amazing series such as Dexter, Californication, The Affair and House of Lies on demand from the back catalogue of one of the world’s most exciting pay TV networks.”
The value of the deal was not revealed but Sky is known to have paid at least£55m a year for a UK-only HBO rights agreement, which runs until 2020.
The pan-European Showtime deal is thought to be worth about £75m per year.

 The absence of Sky Atlantic from Virgin has long been a bone of contention for many cable customers, myself included, and for the last few years I've subscribed to Now TV's Entertainment package just to get access to the channel and related Sky Box sets. The downside for Virgin Media is that, as the Now TV platform matures, the money I spend on Virgin's XL TV is increasingly looking like poor value compared with the Sky-powerered alternative and unless something changes soon I may abandon Virgin's TV service simply because I'm paying VM a small fortune each month when almost all the shows I watch are on Freeview, Netflix or Atlantic.

Dabbling with the Dark Side: Now TV and Game of Thrones update

I have had my wee Now TV box and Entertainment subscription for two months now and I’m pleased to report it has been pretty much faultless for watching Game of Thrones season five, albeit through the Catch Up service rather than live viewing on the Sky Atlantic channel. Not a single instance of picture break up and the 720p picture quality has been extremely good. The Sky Atlantic fan show Thronecast has proven a hit with my family, too, but we’ve found little else on the channel (or ITV Encore, the other Sky exclusive, come to that) that justify keeping the Entertainment sub running after GoT has finished in a few weeks. I will cancel it in June (unless he reviews for the second season of True Detective suggest it's as good as the first).

One blip was with the final episodes of Mad Men when there has been a notable drop in PQ for a few minutes on a couple of occasions during episodes. But again, no break-ups to report and the service has been solid.

New Sky Atlantic rumour

I haven't reported any new rumours of Sky Atlantic "coming soon" to Virgin Media, but this pic, courtesy of Media Boy on Cable Forum, is from a VM survey he's found. The suggestion is that Atlantic may appear as a subscription channel. I'm currently paying for Now TV for a few months but would still prefer to have Atlantic via my TiVo.

Game of Thrones on Now TV - update

On to episode two of season five and, I'm pleased to say, Now TV's On Demand service has delivered again. Excellent picture (720p) and no sign of buffering at all. Whatsmore, it's been available via On Demand all day since the show was simulcast on Sky Atlantic at 2am this morning, which will help spread demand on the service away from the prime time broadcast at 9pm this evening. Clever.

I'm also watching the final episodes of Mad Men on Now TV, again through the On Demand service. Picture quality again very good, but I noticed a slight dip to SD in the latter scenes of episode one. My broadband was fine so I'm not sure what the problem was. 

Who needs Sky Atlantic now?

Sky Atlantic is the one notable channel missing from Virgin Media these days - sure, some may hanker for Universal HD or Discovery Shed HD but we don't even have the SD version of Atlantic as Sky keeps a tight reign on its availability to non-satellite carriers by overpricing it.
But these days, if you want Sky Atlantic shows in HD you can watch via Now TV on demand for £6.99 a month (I still don't recommend the streaming channel in SD though unless you have the patience of a saint). Furthermore, although the official DVDs and Blu Rays still aren't made available until 10 months after a season has finished the online versions of HBO's finest now appear within a week or two of a show finishing on Atlantic. For example, the recent (and final) season of Boardwalk Empire ended in October and we already have it on Amazon Instant, Blinkbox and iTunes to buy in HD. (On the SmartTV-friendly Amazon Instant Video season 5 is £17.99 for HD, £13.99 for SD.)
And there's always the naughty-naughty alternative methods of watching it.
So how big a hole does the absence of Sky Atlantic leave me? None whatsoever now to be honest. And with the ending of Boardwalk and conclusion of Mad Men next spring, there's only really Game of Thrones I'll be bothered about next year, and I'll most likely catch up with that on Now TV for a couple of months or wait for the Amazon release.
Maybe now Sky will drop the price and Virgin will bite, but I'm not really fussed these days.

Game of Thrones on Now TV

Maybe my broadband's playing up tonight*, but Now TV is less than impressive as this clip of tonight's Game of Thrones on Sky Atlantic (via Now TV) demonstrates. I actually video-ed a couple of minutes, most of which featured the spinning wheel, but I think you get the idea from this clip.
As a live channel this is more dire than a Direwolf if you ask me...

[spoiler warning: if you haven't watch episode 2 of the fourth season yet, play with the audio off]

* According to Speedtest.net, I was getting around 30mb downloading on my laptop at the time over the wireless, which is well down on what I normally see.

Sky Atlantic series showing on Sky Living

One of the Sky Atlantic premieres this year is now going to be shown, in full, on Sky Living HD from August 20th. Now that makes sense: the show got good initial reviews but was something of a ratings flop on Sky Atlantic (as are most), so putting it on a channel with a wider audience will appease advertisers and mean Sky gets more air time for its investment in the show.
So will Sky do similar with other Atlantic series? I guess Game of Thrones is unlikely, but maybe the homegrown stuff like Adam Buxton's Bug or the Kathy Burke series Walking and Talking? They always sounded more like Sky1 series to me than Atlantic.
There are rumours of more HD channels coming to Virgin Media in the autumn, but I've not heard anything definite yet. ITV2, 3 and 4 are obvious candidates, but anyone banking on seeing Atlantic or F1 is I fear going to be disappointed.

Sky Go monthly ticket - a legal way to acquire Sky Atlantic series

Sky Go is maturing. What was once a pretty poor, buffering and stuttering streaming service appears to have blossomed into a genuine, valuable service for Sky customers...and also for non-Sky customers too.

With a Sky Go Monthly Ticket you can watch TV from Sky online without the need for a satellite dish or annual contract. You can choose from a range of tickets and watch up to 40 live channels and thousands of hours of on demand shows in line with their subscription. What’s more, customers can register up to two devices and watch on both at the same time. You can watch TV with a Sky Go Monthly Ticket on a computer, iPhone, iPad, compatible Android smartphone or Xbox 360, and can sign up for as little as one month or choose to auto-renew your ticket each month. 

The minimum deal for non-Sky TV subscribers is a £15 monthly ticket, which gets you Sky1, Sky News, Sky Arts 1, Sky Living and (trumpets aloft) Sky Atlantic. You don't just get the live channels - you get the Anytime+ On Demand programmes for those channels too.
I've had a play and must admit I'm pretty impressed - playback is on a par with SD BBC iPlayer on my iPad and MacBook, and when I play the laptop's picture through my TV it looks good too on the larger screen.
A big disappointment for me is that Sky has blocked the output to a TV from the iPad or iPhone for some reason. Why?? Where's the logic in that when the feed from a laptop is permitted??
So if you're desperate for Sky Atlantic stuff and don't want to wait for the DVDs and aren't comfortable using "alternative sources", this could be a solution that might work for you. Personally, I think £15 is too much for what is really just a single (albeit highly desirable) additional channel missing from my VM package. Besides, the Blu Ray release of Boardwalk Empire season 2 is out in September and UK Atlantic programmes like Hit & Miss are appearing quickly on disc too, so maybe a tenner a month for a LoveFilm subscription would be a better value option.

Nialli on Mad Men viewing

I'm watching Mad Men s.5 via a US iTunes account. It cost me $31.99 (£21.38) for the HD season pass. In the UK store Mad Men season 4 in HD retails for £28.99 and there's no sign of season 5.

Personally I don't like using "alternative means" to obtain US programming - as Jerry Seinfeld once lamented, "I don't wanna be a pirate!" - but the media companies deny the content to those willing to pay so what do they expect? I watched Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire thanks to friends who have Sky Atlantic and recorded it for me, and have "legitimised" that viewing by buying the box sets of both once available, but I will be in the minority. I'm not taking a moral high ground though and think that the media companies (Sky, HBO, AMC et al) encourage piracy with their draconian content strategy. Did they learn nothing from the music industry's collapse??
That Sky Atlantic's initial viewing figures (which exclude timeshifted viewing) are so low for the premiere, despite the hype, is hardly a surprise as it wasn't a popular show even on BBC4. But Mad Men is an expensive show to produce and you would think the producers would want to reach as broad a paying audience as possible, rather than just find the show as minority viewing available to a limited audience.

Mad Men on Sky Atlantic and US iTunes, but not UK...

Sad to see that Virgin Media customers still don't have Sky Atlantic in time for the new seasons of Mad Men or Game of Thrones. What's odd though is that the former isn't in the UK iTunes store either, whereas in the US store it appeared the day after broadcast.
Surely Sky aren't so petty as to block the sale of the AMC show from legitimate purchase by those without a dish? And they wonder why people download illegally.
(Incidentally, viewing figures for last night's premiere of the much hyped season five notched up fewer than 100k viewers on Sky Atlantic. The previous season, shown on BBC4, attracted 355k viewers for the season opener.)

Sky Atlantic runs out of Luck

HBO has cancelled Sky Atlantic's big budget horse racing drama Luck, starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, following the deaths of three horses and criticism from animal rights' campaigners.

The broadcaster said it was with heartbreak that it was cancelling all future production on the show, produced by Transformers director Michael Bay.
But that's not to say the channel isn't still the most coveted of Sky's portfolio still not on Virgin Media: Mad Men season 5 airs later this month and the excellent Game of Thrones returns for season 2 early in April.

Sky Atlantic: one year old this week

It's been a year since Sky launched Sky Atlantic for its customers and Virgin Media baulked at the price Sky asked for it. In that time there have only been two series on the channel that have led me to rely on the "generosity of others": Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones. Other than those two, for me attractions on the channel have been relatively light. Sure, Mad Men will be a treat when it finally returns but to be honest I've been less impressed than I thought I would be and certainly not tempted to abandon my TiVo and head for the dark side. There are a few great series being repeated - Seinfeld and The Wire are now being re-broadcast in heavy rotation on Atlantic - but I've got those on disc already as have most who know them.
Having said all that, I'd still love to have Atlantic, even just in standard def.
This week sees the first anniversary of the launch of Atlantic (Feb 1) and the following week has Virgin Media's Full Year and Q4 2011 Results and Strategy Update on Feb 8th, so if there is going to be any carriage announcement for Atlantic expect it in the next few days. I don't expect anything but you never know - I think we have all the Sky channels in standard def except Atlantic and of course we have Sky1, the movie channels and Sport 1 and 2 in HD on Virgin. We even have Sky Anytime (although I haven't seen any of the promised HD on that yet) so it's odd that Atlantic is still held back.
So maybe Virgin could spare a few quid from that mega broadband upgrade £120m they're spending and at least give us Sky Atlantic SD. Pretty please?