Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
I think HBO captured the British imagination. A lot of Sky Atlantic has always been junk, but it’s the content that excels that people go for. One of two HBO episodes each week was enough to gather a lot of interest.
I know that Sky will still be able to commission some material from some studios, but so much now is directed at the streamers by the studios, that there’s not a lot of good stuff left over these days.
I think it is worth pointing out that NOW is competing with those streamers, and if it cannot find enough exclusive content to make it interesting, it could sink without trace.
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You can't dispute the HBO brand equity- and one which has probably been bolstered by Sky having that content brigaded in one place - but whether the non-HBO slate is junk or not is a wholly subjective take and having watched a good chunk of it, I've found there's a lot of decent to really good stuff there, whether original, co-pro or acquired...
Also I don't recall White House Plumbers, The Idol, Somebody Somewhere or Perry Mason setting the discourse alight in the UK... so probably worth keeping in perspective how successful a lot of HBO programming is outside of those few drama tentpoles... and given Sky quickly ordered a second season of the Dyers Caravan Park, not sure we could always say with certainty that audiences always seek excellence (but don't be surprised if Danny Dyer in a caravan outrates a lot of the HBO prestige stuff).
In regards to availability of new material, bit of an odd thing to assume when there has been an overall downturn in original scripted programming being commissioned by streaming services (down 24% year on year based on recent research by
Ampere) ... and to be honest Sky likely wouldn't be bidding for most of that given their localised nature so I'm not sure we can confidently evidence that globally scaled streaming services are eating up every new script in the market... plus let's not forget Sky remain adjacent to NBCUniversal & Comcast so they're not exactly out there alone or at the pauper's table...
And has NOW, a platform that has never seemingly been a priority for Sky and one that has rarely broken the 2m mark in the Uk ever been a real competitor for Amazon (13.8M) and Netflix (around 18m)?