Sky Portfolio Changes

[London Lite]

Noticed there was an English CA on Sky Comedy this evening, presumably as it morphs into a broader UK/US comedy channel from September.

[Mateus Honrado]

My interpretation is that Sky One essentially becomes Sky Max, though with less original content (so Sky One Min), and Sky Replay closes as a catch up channel in favour of Sky Showcase highlighting the core content of the Sky Entertainment channels, so basically simulcasting content rather than repeating it.

Sky Witness is still the brand I don't get - for me Sky Living actually made more sense and offered a bit more flexibility in terms of the content they could show. That said along with Sky One it's programming is the highest rated of the Sky portfolio.

Well, I get Sky Witness because the channel moved away from being a female-oriented lifestyle and scripted channel to being a crime, legal and medical drama channel.

[WillPS]

Showcase is basically Sky Sports Main Event for Sky's Entertainment portfolio + The Simpsons.

Presumably it'll also do the occasional sport simulcasts too. Australian GP always used to be a sure-fire simulcast as it created an inflated audience share figure at the start of the season for a race that many would probably happily lie in over and watch the highlights for.

[gottago]

I get the impression that Sky Showcase is also there to be a last ditch attempt to make any sizeable advertising income from a subscription channel. Their linear channels as it stand only are only really there to beef up their EPG, get very small overnight audiences and have only a few hours of new content a week. Everyone watches their big new shows on demand and they've surely lost quite a lot of advertising income in the last few years as a result.

In theory Sky Showcase should have a packed primetime schedule of new shows each night and will be right up there at the top of the EPG so could end up picking up decent numbers of casual viewers and more advertising income as a result.

[Jeff]

Showcase is basically Sky Sports Main Event for Sky's Entertainment portfolio + The Simpsons.

Presumably it'll also do the occasional sport simulcasts too. Australian GP always used to be a sure-fire simulcast as it created an inflated audience share figure at the start of the season for a race that many would probably happily lie in over and watch the highlights for.

It will be - quoting from the press release:

Sky Showcase will be Sky’s flagship channel ... and it will feature a selection of programmes from across Sky’s portfolio of channels – airing content from Sky Witness, Sky Documentaries, Sky Crime, Sky Nature, Sky Arts, Sky Max, Sky Comedy, Sky History, Sky Kids, SyFy and E!. It will also air selected highlights from Sky Cinema and Sky Sports.

It seems Showcase will handle all of the Sky Sports simulcasts (eg; selected F1 races & The Hundred matches, the occasional Premier League game, etc) which currently air on Sky One as well as the rare times (normally around Christmas) when a Sky Cinema movie airs on One.

[London Lite]

It seems Showcase will handle all of the Sky Sports simulcasts (eg; selected F1 races & The Hundred matches, the occasional Premier League game, etc) which currently air on Sky One as well as the rare times (normally around Christmas) when a Sky Cinema movie airs on One.

Saving Private Ryan is scheduled for Monday 9th August.

[harshy]

Spreading content far too thinly now. It's clear to me that they're doing so to drive users of the Entertainment service to on demand content, this seemingly a step in doing so. I'd doubt if we'll see any more channels now.

There’s too many channels and I have to admit I’ve not seen Sky one in years, does it even have a decent ident? When we first got Sky it was so different, DJ kat show, love at first sight, Beverley hills 90210, and a watered down wwe, a very different era indeed.

[Steve Williams]

Saving Private Ryan is scheduled for Monday 9th August.

That isn't a Sky Cinema movie, though - that's just Sky One showing a (quite old) film to fill gaps in the schedule. What Jeff and the original press release is suggesting is the rare occasion like the other Christmas when they showed The Greatest Showman on Sky One at pretty much the same time it premiered on Sky Cinema.

[Rdd]

To be fair Sky promote those Monday evening movies on the My Sky app as “Sky VIP Movie Monday” with a giant Sky Cinema logo and the strap line “A free taste of Sky Cinema”. (To be less fair, there’s no actual connection to either Sky VIP or Sky Cinema beyond this).

[Steve Williams]

To be fair Sky promote those Monday evening movies on the My Sky app as “Sky VIP Movie Monday” with a giant Sky Cinema logo and the strap line “A free taste of Sky Cinema”. (To be less fair, there’s no actual connection to either Sky VIP or Sky Cinema beyond this).

Fair enough - it reminds me of the last few weeks of the original ESPN in 2013 when every programme was sponsored by BT Sport, just to do a bit of brand-building. But it would look a bit rubbish for a channel like Sky Showcase, which is being heavily promoted as the destination for all of Sky's premium entertainment content, to make a big deal of a twenty year old film that's been shown dozens of times on FTA TV. I assume it will be for the occasional simulcast of a genuinely big film that Sky Cinema want to promote extensively.

Sounds a bit like the Friday Film Special on CBBC, that.

[Rick]

Yes, and this week's film was Beverly Hills Cop 3, which is hardly a massive movie to shout about and was being repeated to death on Comedy Central until recently.

[Rdd]

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/medi...-1.4637005

Interesting (with some inaccuracies) article from Laura Slattery remincising on early Sky One.

[J102B]

Apologies if this has already been said, very late to the party on this one, but it is interesting that Sky are using their corporate colours in the 'Showcase' logo. Really pushing that suggestion that it's is all their brands, not just one brand. Also, and I very much doubt this would happen, but could Sky Sports Main Event have a slight rebrand to 'Sky Sports Showcase'? As mentioned this new channel is effectively doing what Main Event does. Perhaps even a cinema channel called showcase to? They could then easily put that branding into a good advertising campaign... "Showcasing on Sky this week/weekend/evening'? Just some out loud musings

[Humphrey Hacker]

Spreading content far too thinly now. It's clear to me that they're doing so to drive users of the Entertainment service to on demand content, this seemingly a step in doing so. I'd doubt if we'll see any more channels now.

There’s too many channels and I have to admit I’ve not seen Sky one in years, does it even have a decent ident? When we first got Sky it was so different, DJ kat show, love at first sight, Beverley hills 90210, and a watered down wwe, a very different era indeed.

Sky One has gone through so many changes that I feel its lost its identity. I have fond memories of Sky 1 (and sky in general) in the mid 1990's but its become so diluted in 2021 that a total revamp is needed

[Brekkie]

Obviously the way we consume US drama has changed in the last few years, and also US drama itself has changed too with the mainstream network shows becoming less important compared to the higher value cable and streaming content. Sky One has mainly continued with shows from the CW, which have their audience but probably don't reach much outside of that audience.

They've also had to stand up more for themselves over the last decade, firstly with originals (which they have excelled at on many occassions) but also any US content doesn't really have the profile outside of Sky 1 anymore, unlike the days where they'd run the likes of ER and Friends six months ahead of C4 or the phase they went through of buying rights after they'd aired on terrestrial TV for a couple of series.