Behold! Sky Atlantic

mike65

The home for all those US imports Sky are hoovering up has a name Sky Atlantic, HD subscription channel which is yours as part of the Variety Pack for a recession busting £19 per month (whats the cost here in euro?).

from Guardian

BSkyB said that it could not at this stage confirm any wholesale deals with other pay-TV operators, such as Virgin Media, to carry Sky Atlantic. (whither UPC?)

"Sky Atlantic HD will be an extraordinary TV channel," promised Sophie Turner Laing, the managing director of entertainment, news and broadcast operations at Sky.

Stuart Murphy, the director of programmes for Sky1, 2 and 3, will have his responsibilities extended to include Sky Atlantic.

Commenting on the acquisition of Mad Men, Murphy said: "Mad Men has developed into a pop culture phenomenon with an extremely passionate fan base.

"The series' scale and ambition complements our strategy for producing and acquiring cinematic television that, in turn, complements our fantastic library of movies."

BSkyB struck the deal for Mad Men with the show's producer, Lionsgate Television. Sky is understood to have submitted a bid for the show, which currently airs on BBC4, of at least 25% more than the corporation paid for the last deal.

Peter Iacono, the managing director International at Lionsgate, indirectly paid tribute to the role the free-to-air broadcaster made in establishing Mad Men over the past four years.

"Lionsgate is grateful to the British public for embracing the series and catapulting it into a worldwide cultural phenomenon," he said. "Sky has proven itself to be a creative standard-bearer for the best in television."

BSkyB will exclusively air the fifth series next summer and will also have the repeat rights for the first four seasons, which were first broadcast in the UK on BBC4.

mikom

Sloppily written piece which suggests Atlantic costs £19 in addition to the cost of the Variety pack.

mike65

I told them that exact thing! Journos these days...

Basq

Sky are full of sh*t as usual.. from the Irish Times in July:

A spokeswoman for Sky said HBO programming would be available on the broadcaster’s ordinary television channels and no extra cost would be included.

Now that I didn't see it coming!

adox

So is this going to cost extra or not? I cant make sense of it.

Theres zero chance of me paying more to Sky for it. I`ve already dumped the sports and movies pack as its just too expensive.

Also, if they start shifting some of the bigger shows from Sky 1 to this new channel and its a pay service, I may drop the subscription altogether.

JeanClaude

adox wrote: »

So is this going to cost extra or not? I cant make sense of it.

Theres zero chance of me paying more to Sky for it. I`ve already dumped the sports and movies pack as its just too expensive.

Also, if they start shifting some of the bigger shows from Sky 1 to this new channel and its a pay service, I may drop the subscription altogether.

The best I can make out, it's going to part of the variety pack, so no extra cost. But I'm in the same boat as you if it was gonna cost extra, I'd be dropping my Sub aswell.

grumpytrousers

I've a 32" telly. Most folk tell me that HD is pointless on it, although it is HD ready. When I bought it, there weren't any HD-less televisions available and I didn't really want a huge hulking yoke in the corner of the sitting room.

So Sky HD has never really made sense to me. The PS3 upscales DVDs for me, and for most everything else, well dagnabbit, if the narrative is good enough, the mere 'digital' as opposed to 'HD' quality, it's good enough for me.

Now, it seems, to get this I'll have to pony up €30 for a new box/installation and an extra €15 for the default HD package. And then Atlantic *might* cost more than that again. Even if it doesn't, it's the guts of €200 a year I'd rather spend on something else...

ejmaztec

Sky can feck off with their Sky+, HD, and any more Sky money-spinners, the robbers.

The Sparrow

grumpytrousers wrote: »

I've a 32" telly. Most folk tell me that HD is pointless on it, although it is HD ready. When I bought it, there weren't any HD-less televisions available and I didn't really want a huge hulking yoke in the corner of the sitting room.

I think that is nonsense tbf. I have a 32 inch tv and you can definitely see the difference that HD makes especially with sports. I don't have Sky HD but I download HD programming and it looks beautiful. Sure you might get better results on a bigger tv but that is offset by needing to be sitting further away from it.

Anyway back OT, I don't really understand this. Is Sky Atlantic going to be another channel launched on the Sky variety pack or is it going to be a standalone premium channel with it's own subscription? If it is just going to be added to the variety pack then that is great news as it will be sweet having all of those shows on one channel and on anytime (what is anytime +?)

Also is there going to be a non HD version of it? And finally how does it affect Irish television and are the we covered in the deals that they have signed for HBO programming or can Irish stations come to their own deals with HBO etc?

Finally, Sky Atlantic is a rubbish name!

iseegirls

ejmaztec wrote: »

Sky can feck off with their Sky+, HD, and any more Sky money-spinners, the robbers.

Don't forget Sky 3D too :pac:

mike65

iseegirls wrote: »

Don't forget Sky 3D too :pac:

Sky will probably demand Mad Men is made in the third dimension and use Joans bust as the selling point! :pac:

As far as I can tell the Atlantic channel is part of Variety not extra but if you ain't got HD there will be extra cost involved.

The Sparrow

mike65 wrote: »

Sky will probably demand Mad Men is made in the third dimension and use Joans bust as the selling point! :pac:

If so, where do I sign up for 3D??:pac:

Minstrel27

Is this to be a HD only channel? It would be rather foolish if it was and as it is part of the Variety package, that covers anyone with Sky One on Sky Digital.

ejmaztec

iseegirls wrote: »

Don't forget Sky 3D too :pac:

I'll remember to forget that as well.:P

grumpytrousers

The Sparrow wrote: »

Also is there going to be a non HD version of it?

As far as I can tell, the answer is NO. So, there's the incentive to get people to upgrade to HD.

No HD box and package? No Sky Atlantic...

Our man in Havana

This will only encourage illegal downloads.

mike65

and DVD box sets for Christmas which suits the production company but not SKY.

The Sparrow

grumpytrousers wrote: »

As far as I can tell, the answer is NO. So, there's the incentive to get people to upgrade to HD.

No HD box and package? No Sky Atlantic...

Actually I did a bit of research after posting here and thankfully, the answer is YES. According to DigitalSpy, there will be a SD version of this channel and it will be part of the regular variety pack. So if you have Sky already, this is good news for the most part as it sounds like a pretty good channel and it is not costing anything extra.

Of course, if you dodn't have Sky then it is a bit of a disaster if you like watching the best American drama and don't download it or buy boxsets.

Dman001

Very surprising Sky aren't charging for this. Was hoping to here Breaking Bad will be on the channel too along with Mad Men. It's a wonder, with all the money they paid for rights, they didn't secure the rights to next day viewings of the HBO shows. They missed a serious opportunity there.