Sky 1 is to become Sky's main home of home grown programming after it was announced that Sky Living will focus on US imports.
In a message to staff, Stuart Murphy director of Sky's entertainment channels, said:
“As part of a strategic realignment of the entertainment portfolio we have decided to supersize Sky 1, dramatically increasing the investment in home-grown shows on our main entertainment channel.
"The majority of home-grown shows on Sky Living will move over to our main entertainment channel ..., with Sky Living focusing almost exclusively on US dramas going forward."
The changes are due to start from summer 2015.
What will be the point of Sky Living? I can see it being axed and it content moved to Sky Atlantic. I take it, its no longer a female lead channel
It's about time they tried to differentiate between their main three channels. I'll never forget a Guardian (IIRC) blog where the presenters challenged themselves to try and guess what channel a number of programmes were shown on between Sky 1, Sky Living and Sky Atlantic. Safe to say many answers were incorrect.
Sky 1 really doesn't have the charm it used to have years ago. In an age where there are so many digital channels making more of an effort to make themselves known, Sky 1 has blended too much with them and has become just another digital channel. It's lost focus. Sky Living simply shouldn't be called Sky Living anymore. The name doesn't make any sense since it shifted away from the female-orientated thing. And as for Sky Atlantic, it's the home for primarily US dramas and homegrown UK programming - so why do we now have a channel for homegrown programming and a channel for US dramas?
Sky are dangerously becoming the next UKTV, whereby they're starting to lose focus of their channels and they all start to become similar. There are a number of shows that UKTV broadcast that could easily (and have) air on Gold, Dave, Watch and Drama. It now seems there is no easy answer as to where a show should do between 1, Living and Atlantic.
Exactly Sky channels are a mess, and must be a nightmare for advertisers to target the audience. At least with the ITV family of channels each have a distinctive indentity.
Sky Living does really scream lifestyle & a female skew, it should be rebranded or become the new Sky 2.
They've never really known what to do with Living since it started and never been able to shake off the "female" tag really, meaning when they launch shows you wouldn't expect to see on Living people aren't watching them. Absolutely agree a rebrand is needed.
Sky Living shifted its focus from females a long while ago; it's essentially becoming a clone of the other channels, as stated by Larry. Looking at the linked post, it may become a clone of Sky Atlantic.
In any case, Sky have played the "home for homegrown" thing many times before for Sky 1, and always change their mind later. You get this with every letter notification of price increase as a justification; the on screen result is often the next series of The Simpsons, a new series of Moone Boy and some big American import that you can watch now On Demand.
Sky's main problem, I think, is too many channels (of their own) for too little content. Since Living and Atlantic are going to become essential clones, they should really merge. Sky 2 should really go, as it doesn't really offer anything more than Pick does, to be honest, and since they bought Challenge, all their archive quiz programming has been transferred to it, which leaves Sky2 with sod all else except the old back catalogues of Bravo and Ftn/Virgin1.
It's beginning to look like Sky bought the VM channels simply to prevent competition. They closed some of them down shortly afterwards, and then wasted the popularity of the others.
The entertainment channels no longer even look very different, and I agree that the average punter would find it difficult to know which channel they were watching, had it not been for their insistence on having a DOG on Sky Living (but not the other 2).
Perhaps they should close Atlantic and move the shows over to Living. It's a stronger brand.
Perhaps they should close Atlantic and move the shows over to Living. It's a stronger brand.
That's debatable. "Living" has a longer legacy but "Atlantic" has been shoved down people's throats a lot more. I can't see them dropping Atlantic because that's one of their main selling points for trying to lure Virgin customers over to Sky. Plus the word "Living" doesn't match what the channel is offering, so really, Sky 1 and Sky Atlantic should remain as it's the most logical... in my opinion anyway.
Perhaps they should close Atlantic and move the shows over to Living. It's a stronger brand.
Atlantic is their only exclusive brand. I believe the HBO programming contract allows the content being aired over the Sky and NOW TV platforms only. Scheduling Game of Thrones on Living would stop some customers from moving to Sky or NOW over Virgin and the other IPTV providers.
As for the overall decision, Sky 1 has been diluted for too long and lacking direction. You know it's the home of The Simpsons and if you're lucky you'll dip into some of the UK content.
Sky Atlantic is a far stronger brand than Living now and has the image of premium quality drama, arguably the direct opposite of Living. It would be pretty dumb for Sky to close it.
I would rebrand Living and close Sky 2 (or perhaps rebrand Living as yet another incarnation of Sky 2). A rebrand could also be the opportunity to make whatever Sky Living became exclusive to Sky too in the way Sky Atlantic is.
Also worth throwing Sky Arts into the equation here - they dip their toes into drama as well.
It makes sense to do this. As some have said, there's very little difference between these channels thesedays, especially as Atlantic is showing more UK programmes.
I wonder if The Simpsons will stay on Sky 1 then. I guess it probably will, but perhaps with less repeats?
It's beginning to look like Sky bought the VM channels simply to prevent competition. They closed some of them down shortly afterwards, and then wasted the popularity of the others.
The entertainment channels no longer even look very different, and I agree that the average punter would find it difficult to know which channel they were watching, had it not been for their insistence on having a DOG on Sky Living (but not the other 2).
Perhaps they should close Atlantic and move the shows over to Living. It's a stronger brand.
That's true and it looks as though Viacom are going to fill the void that was left after Bravo was closed down.
I wonder if The Simpsons will stay on Sky 1 then. I guess it probably will, but perhaps with less repeats?
A few years ago it seemed to me that they had far less repeats of The Simpsons in primetime. Channel hopping at around 7 or 8pm I traditionally used to expect Sky1 to have The Simpsons on, but they'd now have something else on instead - however the trend seems to have reversed and I feel they've increased the repeats, perhaps not to a level that it was say 10 years ago, but certainly more than there used to be. I'm also certain that they don't promote the new episodes on Sundays as much as they used to.
Of course Sky also has the clever scheduling of Futurama at 6pm when Channel 4 is showing Simpsons, and then Simpsons from 6.30 when everyone is desperately trying to find the remote in order to avoid Hollyoaks.