Sky Movies channels to be renamed

The new channel names and transmission times have now been released:


From Sky Digi Online PACK 1 and PACK 2 as coloured.

I wonder if there will be a proportionate reduction in the subscription seeing as we are losing 3 channels (302 is simply a +1 channel), and four of them operate for 12 hours a day or less.

If you want 301/302 you have to subscribe to both packs. What a con!

Surely they're not calling them "Sky Movies Action/Thriller" or "Sci-fi/Horror".

I'd have thought it make more sense to have Premiere as the channel available to all Sky Movies viewers, and it be the one you'd expect in the DTT "Sky Lite" service.


So if you need both packs I wonder where they will stick the Premieres - will they do as now and air them on Sky Movies Premiere and then with multi-start on the genre specific channel - though with +1 they probably don't even need to do that!


It's like everything nowadays though - they don't raise prices, they cut content, just like a bar of Dairy Milk!

The premieres all appear on Sky Movies Premiere (and +1) showing at the same time every night for a week, then go off-air for a month before appearing on the appropriate genre channel.

So basically if you only get one of the packs you don't get to see it until 5 weeks after it has first aired.

EDIT:
Currently the 12 (non-HD) channels offer 272 hours of films a week. All are 24 hours except 9 & 10.
In future the 10 (non-HD) channels will offer only 188 hours a week - 30% less. The quivalent of removing 3.5 full time channels.

Surely the subscription should reflect the reduced service. I can't see DTT offering Sky Movies Premiere unless they charge the same as for both packs on DSat, otherwise everyone would simply switch to DTT and get the same films, earlier for less money.

I would predict DTT viewers will get a 'Sky Movies' or 'Sky Movies Lite' branded service rather than an actual channel. It will probably be like one of the Sky Movies channels we have now where every genre is chucked in.

Why have they got pack 1 and pack 2 mixed up all over the show? Pack 1 should be all together and so should pack 2!

I wonder how these extra long names will fit onto the EPG?

304: SkyMovAct/Thr
309: SkyMovModGrs

Looks stupid! They should cut the 'Movies' bit and just have it as 'Sky Premiere', 'Sky Comedy', 'Sky Family', 'Sky Drama'.......we know the channels will be movie channels as they’re in the movies bit of the EPG, so I don’t think they really need the word 'movies' in their name.

I imagine some of them will swap round before March so that they occupy alternate EPG slots, as with the current Movies 1 & 2 subs. (evens & odds)

IIRC the EPG names for the previous incarnation changed at the start becuase of restricted space, eg:
Sky Movies P1....etc
Sky Mov Prem 1....etc

They insist on having "Sky" in there somewhere, and "Mov" at the very least it seems. So we are going to end up with very abbreviated channel names which probably no-one will be initailly able to understand.

It's abit like Discovery's decision to place "Disc." in front of all their channels on the EPG that makes theirs look a mess now (and the insane requirement to extent channel names to "Travel & Living, Home & Health etc).

Again I ask - what is wrong with the way things are?

I can't see the DTT service having any kind of "Lite" or "Light" branding on it as this would make the service less attractive - especially if Sky want to charge similar prices to the Sky platform.

Why would people want to buy into a service described as Lite for a similar price to the full service?

Not the way it works - it's like chocolate bars getting shorter, crisp packets lighter, magazines thinner etc - and even after they do that they still hike the price soon after!




Cause a problem for the traditional TV guides too!

Rather pleased I gave up on Sky Movies/Sports now.

Much of the sports coverage can be picked up on Euro channels for free, and the movies on their own cost around £15 a month on top of a basic subscription -- which is money better spent on an on-line "all you can eat" DVD rental service, which gets the films before they're even out on the PPV channels.

If it wasn't for a few channels like the Discovery set etc, I think I may just have cancelled Sky altogether, since many of the better channels are on Freeview now anyway, and there's always the (illegal) downloaded versions of US imports.

I don't care about the TV Guides, I don't read them, and Sky Guide goes straight in the bin.

Will be a shame to see the current look of the channel go, I've always thought it was excellent, really slick.

Can't decide if this is a good idea or not personally.

They might show good films, but as I saw on my latest bill, I had watched them on Box Office, so no point having them on Movies too....

Sky was told where to place their improved package this evening (after 7years so I think they have done wrong by established customers)

EDIT:
They were quick! Movies off already! And that's before the refund!