[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

I know Sky is a household name in the UK but why would the Sky <insert number> name format be better than more distinctive names that have been around for years? SyFy, Universal, E! and Movies24 have been around for years. UK viewers know those brands.

Numbers don't convey content, viewers will forget which channel broadcasts the type of show they like. Will it become obvious that their favourite vampire show is on Sky 6 and so is their US housewife docu-soap?

I think Pick TV can be said to be doing a lot better now than under its old name of Sky3. And a good non-Sky example is Dave, it used to be UKTV G2, though admittedly much of the success there is because it coincided with it going Free-To-Air, but UKTV G2 doesn't roll off the tongue.

And staying with the UKTV example, there was a time when all their channels had UKTV added to their names. That was ultimately deemed not the best idea, so co-branding with Sky e.g. Sky SyFy and Sky Universal isn't necessarily a good alternative.

There were reports a few months ago, before Sky was bought, that Real Lives would close. The ratings numbers are tiny and I doubt most viewers would even recognise the brand. Partially because even though it's Free-To-Air, it's not on Freeview. I can't imagine Sky using that brand instead of the internationally known E!, which UK viewers are long familiar with.

I'd even go as far to say that Sky entertainment channels with numbers, other than Sky One, don't last very long, and those that do are continually relaunched. Sky Two has previously been Sky2, Sky Mix and Sky One Mix and it hasn't been a distinct channel for most of that. With on-demand increasing in popularity it has become increasingly irrelevant.

So I'm predicting the NBCUniversal channel brands to remain the same in the UK. The cost savings will come from the premises move already announced, and overlapping job positions being merged.

Real Lives is a pay channel (though there have been rumours for a long time that it could go FTA at some point and it's been speculated that this is why it has no Sky branding).

---------- Post added at 14:54 ---------- Previous post was at 14:50 ----------

Originally Posted by fox35

I honestly doubt any of the above will occur. I believe probably the opposite will happen.
The NBCU channels, along with FOX, are in my opinion are far stronger both content and brand wise than any Sky branded numeric channel. The glory days of Sky One having all the first run top US drama series ended about 15-20 years ago, even Sky Atlantic, is not the same as its launch first year. Though Sky Witness has improved too and is now far superior than Sky 1.
So I can see Sky 1 and 2 closing with main drama content sifted across to Universal TV, SyFy, Atlantic and Witness, and other content moved to one of the many lifestyle channels. Pick should continue with increased rerun content from NBCU.
I think the Sky branding is now only associated strongly with Football and questionably Sky News, so possibly NBCU may just continue the brand as a provider only, ie Direct TV or Dish Network, as opposed to a branded broadcast network of channels.

The very first Sky channel was 'Sky Channel'. When they increased their number of channels it was renamed to Sky 1, so I think that the original intention was to go down the route of numbering them, but then it was decided to name them by genre. With this in mind, Sky 1 etc are a bit of an anomoly so you could well be right.