I guess that because Disney was forced to sell their stake in A+E UK because of the Fox merger, Hearst needed Sky more than ever as a broadcasting partner. As Disney pulled out, Sky was willing to have more involvement, in exchange of co-branding their flagship channel brand - History.
At least with the channel being called Sky History, it enables the channel to be cross-promoted on Sky's channels and with a consistent brand.
Given how poorly they perform, A+E Networks UK could think about replacing HISTORY2 and Lifetime with alternative channel brands that they use in the US, such as A&E and FYI.
HISTORY, Crime + Investigation and BLAZE all do pretty well, but the others clearly do not.
If anything, I can see more A+E channels being rebranded under the Sky moniker. It allows Sky to have their brand on more channel output without being directly involved as they've done with History which is still based in Hammersmith under the A+E portfolio.
Just watched the first of the Attenborough Galapagos series on Nature. Picture quality was definately poorer that the other content on the channel I've viewed so far. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the source wasn't 1080/25. Very strange indeed. (I have checked my BB speed too which is normal.)
Given how poorly they perform, A+E Networks UK could think about replacing HISTORY2 and Lifetime with alternative channel brands that they use in the US, such as A&E and FYI.
HISTORY, Crime + Investigation and BLAZE all do pretty well, but the others clearly do not.
FYI could work as a replacement for Lifetime.
A&E probably won't be used as a brand name as it's more associated with Accident and Emergency in the UK which I believe is the reason they went for Blaze instead.