If there were any doubts about the original content ambitions of the pay TV operator supported by Comcast under its new leadership, a 125-title film and 2021 TV plan reflects a company prepared to build a distinct and autonomous service that can compete with its SVOD rivals with lots of pockets.
Sky in late 2019 renewed its production contract with HBO – which allows the company to offer major U.S. hairdressing programs on its Sky Atlantic channel – for “several years”, but the company is clearly planning a future in for WarnerMedia to connect internationally to licensing in favor of its own platform, HBO Max, which is now putting its house in order in Latin America and Europe.
The contract has “a few years to run,” says Zai Bennett, managing director of content for Sky UK, “but you can add two plus two: where people go straight to the consumer, we have to have our own exclusive content. We need to prepare our business for the future ”.
Bennett notes that Sky needs to “plan a scenario in which HBO says it is now [expanding HBO Max] around the world and we need to be able to say to them, ‘Okay, good luck, but we’re fine.’ Likewise, we need to be able to put in a lot of money and say, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to license programs for us?’ But, ultimately, we need to keep track of the things we control. “
And, for Sky, this is original content, which generally gets higher ratings than purchased programs (“Gangs of London” by Pulse Films was Sky’s most intense program in 2020), with the exception of US hits like Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman’s thriller “The Undoing” and, of course, “Game of Thrones”.
The 125 films and TV shows represent a 50% increase from 2020 and include 30 Sky Original films along with 30 original documentaries.
Bennett says that despite the major restructuring of leadership at the company – which sees the departure of longtime executives Gary Davey and Sky chief Jeremy Darroch, ending the old Sky regime – figures like Stephen van Rooyen, CEO of Sky UK and Europe, “offer stability”.
Bennett reveals that Sky Group’s new CEO, Dana Strong, has arrived in the UK and is starting to meet with the teams after their mandatory quarantine period.
“The main thing for us is that Comcast has owned the business for several years and we made a big announcement about investing in our original productions [in June 2019] and they were part of that, ”says Bennett, citing Sky’s plans to invest $ 1 billion in content by 2024.“ Their support has resulted in that, so there have been no changes and we’ll still be working on it. “
In the short term, there will be greater investment in films, with plans to release two new original films each month, with the goal of one new feature per week in 2022. The strategy is “partially inspired by COVID,” says Bennett, “But it’s also about brand distinction. ”
The list of films includes “A Boy Called Christmas”, “Extinct”, “Monster Family 2”, “Save The Cinema”, “Creation Stories”, “Six Minutes to Midnight”, “The Glorias”, “Jolt”, ” SAS: Red Notice, ”“ The Comeback Trail ”,“ Breaking News In Yuba County ”and“ Antebellum ”.
Sky Cinema’s marketing hook is an offer of films “that you can’t get anywhere else,” says the executive, who personally dedicated himself to dedicating himself more to the cinema space, especially as competitors like Netflix prepared a movie for breathtaking that offers movies every week of the year. “We are offering a variety of genres, including some familiar pieces. The main thing is that they have the best talents and are of high quality. “
So far, the pay-TV operator has made deals with all Hollywood studios except Disney.
Bennett also makes it clear that Sky “wants the [theatrical model] to work ”so you can provide a pipeline for the service. That said, a variety of models are being explored. Films like Universal’s “Trolls World Tour” were released on the date and date on the platform, while “Wonder Woman 1984” opened after a single month-long theatrical window, as agreed with UK exhibitors, revealed by Variety in December. Although the “Wonder Woman 1984” business was not exclusive to Sky in the end, despite advanced negotiations, exclusivity is the ultimate goal.
“For some films, we are commissioning scripts and there from the beginning,” says Bennett. With other films that studios can’t necessarily release at the time of COVID – not necessarily the biggest blockbusters, but at the next level below, he says – Sky can buy in the UK window and mark them as Sky Originals. For example, “A Boy Called Christmas” is with Netflix in most global territories, but on Sky in the UK. For other films, a PVOD agreement may make more sense.
Elsewhere, Sky will also release new original documentaries, including “Liverpool Narcos”, an exploration of how Liverpool became the epicenter of a drug boom that would change Britain forever; “Chernobyl 86”, a revealing look at the newly discovered images of the Chernobyl disaster; “Positive”, a retrospective of Britain’s 40-year struggle against HIV / AIDS; and “The Bambers: Murder at the Farm”, a forensic examination of the case of Jeremy Bamber and the White House murders at the Farm, produced by Louis Theroux and Aaron Fellows.
On the dramatic side, the pay-TV operator is looking to build the success of programs, including the hit “Chernobyl”, “Gangs of London” and “I Hate Suzie.
Sky revealed on Saturday that “Tenet” actor Kenneth Branagh will play Boris Johnson in his upcoming drama “This Sceptred Isle”, written and directed by Michael Winterbottom. The highly anticipated series will detail the UK’s chaotic response to the coronavirus crisis.
Other new TV originals include “Wolfe”, starring Babou Ceesay (“Guerilla”, “Rogue One”) as a forensic pathologist praised and written by Paul Abbott (“Shameless”); “The Midwich Cuckoos”, a modern adaptation of the classic science fiction novel by David Farr (“The Night Manager”) by John Wyndham; and “Extinction”, an action thriller about a man who lives the same day over and over again, written by Joe Barton (“Giri / Haji”) and starring Paapa Essiedu (“I May Destroy You”), Tom Burke (“Strike ”), Anjli Mohindra (“ Bodyguard ”) and Caroline Quentin (“ Men Behaving Badly ”).
Ultimately, all content will also reach Sky’s popular SVOD service, Now TV, which hosts movies and TV shows made available to subscribers with a number of dedicated “passes”.
Asked if there is any chance that NBCUniversal’s Peacock will make it to Now TV in any way – similar to what Disney Plus is doing with its adult-oriented Star service, which will become a Disney Plus play internationally – Bennett says no plans are in place progress so far.
“Peacock is currently a US service,” says Bennett. “At the moment, we share a lot of things: they have a lot of our comedies and we take ‘Brave New World’, and we are co-producing some documents together too. But in our territory, it’s Sky, and in the USA, it’s Peacock. I don’t see them coexisting anytime soon. “