From 1 February, Discovery portfolio of channels are unlikely to be available on Sky

[bassethound]

From 1 February, Discovery Communications’ portfolio of channels are unlikely to be available in Sky TV packages.

In the UK and Ireland, this includes Animal Planet, Discovery HD, Discovery History, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Shed, Discovery Turbo, DMAX, Eurosport1, Eurosport2, Investigation Discovery, Quest and TLC.



https://www.sky.com/help/articles/changes-to-sky-channels?DCMP=snt-skycom:ec_channel_changes

[Willmoore]

No doubt Sky will then drop their prices :roflmao:

[DaMacFunkin]

It's all posturing and potentially could get worse before it gets better, the majority shareholder in those channels is Liberty Global who own Virgin Media, you could now maybe see some Sky channels drop from VM when their contracts are up, OR you could see the mentioned channels remain on SKY at an attractive price in exchange for Sky Atlantic or Sky 4K on VM.
Like i said it could get messy before it gets better.

[bassethound]

- - - Updated - - -

Looks like this is related to an ongoing financial squabble between the 2 companies, you can read more here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/25/discovery-goes-war-sky-channel-fees-blackout-threat/

Discovery, the US media giant behind the TLC and Eurosport channels, has issued an extraordinary public threat to withdraw all its programming from Sky over claims it "refuses to pay a fair price".

The company, which has spent £1bn acquire pan-European rights to the Olympics, said its channels will be switched off on Sky at the end of the month if a deal is not reached.

Discovery's decision to make a public blackout threat comes after months of fraught negotiation that the company said had reached an impasse.
Susanna Dinnage, Discovery's managing director in the UK said: "We believe Sky is using what we consider to be its dominant market position to further its own commercial interest over those of viewers and independent broadcasters. The vitality of independent broadcasters like Discovery and plurality in TV is under threat.”

Pay-TV operators across Europe have in recent years focused spending on exclusive, on-demand drama and sports rights they believe motivate households to subscribe. The trend has squeezed budgets for the type of factual programming provided by Discovery, which Sky claims has suffered a 17pc decline in its share of viewing since 2013.

A Discovery source said: "This is about consumer choice. If people just want drama they can get a Netflix subscription."

Sky is seeking to reduce its bills for Discovery channels more than most because it has faced an 83pc increase in the cost of its Premier League rights this season following a record-breaking auction battle with BT.

At the same time, Discovery is seeking to make a return on its Olympics deal. Some of the games will be shown on Eurosport, but it is understood that Sky has argued in negotiations that events that take place every four years do not draw monthly subscribers.

Discovery said the dispute had nothing to do with its Olympics bill. However, it has faced problems cashing in on the rights. It failed to make a deal with public broadcasters in German after they balked at the price.

A Sky spokesman said the company will not meet Discovery's price demands, or its call for a five-year deal, and that the channels will be withdrawn.

He added: "Despite our best efforts to reach a sensible agreement, we, like many other platforms and broadcasters across Europe, have found the price expectations for the Discovery portfolio to be completely unrealistic. Discovery’s portfolio of channels includes many which are linear-only where viewing is falling.

"Sky has a strong track record of understanding the value of the content we acquire on behalf of our customers, and as a result we’ve taken the decision not to renew this contract on the terms offered.

"We have been overpaying Discovery for years and are not going to anymore. We will now move to redeploy the same amount of money into content we know our customers value."

[garryboy]

Il miss out on gold rush.


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[Bangord30]

All good though as Forces TV has Airwolf starting on 6/2! 🚁

In all seriousness it is a dark day if this is all starting to become reality cause of football pennies spent. Sky also talking about streaming the whole package over their BB. Not looking good for 28.2!

[garryboy]

UK broadband network is not good enough to deliver high quality streaming to all of its sky customers.

I got 1.6mb download at my old house. Satellite TV was only option and cant see that changing any time soon.


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[1554leslie]

There are still other options available to get those discovery channels so gold rush is a must for me

[nsw9154]

Looks like it might be a good excuse for me to finally get my Motorized Dish set up or move my static Dish to 19e :rolleyes:

[Ev0]

An update from Sly:

We have something for every customer. Drama, documentaries, entertainment, comedy, sports, movies and more.

We have worked really hard for more than a year to get a deal done for our customers with Discovery, so we are disappointed with their misleading claims and aggressive actions. We now feel it’s time to set the record straight. Because despite our differences, we love Discovery too.

We were prepared to pay a fair price for the Discovery and Eurosport channels and invest more in those channels to make them even better for our customers. We have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to Discovery, a $12bn American business, but that wasn’t enough. They asked the Sky Group to pay close to £1bn for their portfolio of channels, many of which are in decline.

Sadly, we have now had to prepare for Discovery to take their channels away from Sky customers, as they have threatened to do. It is Discovery’s choice to do this, not ours. We never left the negotiating table and they haven’t come back to it since they made their threats public this week.

Sky doesn’t boot channels off our platform. If Discovery don’t want their channels to disappear, as their public campaign suggests, they could have made arrangement to stay on Sky, including free to air with advertising funding or with their own subscription, but they’ve chosen not to do so.

Our commitment to our customers is this: We will spend every penny that we were going to pay to Discovery on more and better content that our customers value. This will come from sources around the globe and home grown shows and documentaries from the UK. We will continue to offer customers a huge range of content including hundreds of shows from The History Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic, along with more amazing sport on Sky Sports Mix, available to all our customers.

We hope our customers understand that we have been working on their behalf and will always do that. We thank them for their support.

Source:

http://www.sky.com/discoveringmore

[DaMacFunkin]

An update from Sly:

We have something for every customer. Drama, documentaries, entertainment, comedy, sports, movies and more.

We have worked really hard for more than a year to get a deal done for our customers with Discovery, so we are disappointed with their misleading claims and aggressive actions. We now feel it’s time to set the record straight. Because despite our differences, we love Discovery too.

We were prepared to pay a fair price for the Discovery and Eurosport channels and invest more in those channels to make them even better for our customers. We have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to Discovery, a $12bn American business, but that wasn’t enough. They asked the Sky Group to pay close to £1bn for their portfolio of channels, many of which are in decline.

Sadly, we have now had to prepare for Discovery to take their channels away from Sky customers, as they have threatened to do. It is Discovery’s choice to do this, not ours. We never left the negotiating table and they haven’t come back to it since they made their threats public this week.

Sky doesn’t boot channels off our platform. If Discovery don’t want their channels to disappear, as their public campaign suggests, they could have made arrangement to stay on Sky, including free to air with advertising funding or with their own subscription, but they’ve chosen not to do so.

Our commitment to our customers is this: We will spend every penny that we were going to pay to Discovery on more and better content that our customers value. This will come from sources around the globe and home grown shows and documentaries from the UK. We will continue to offer customers a huge range of content including hundreds of shows from The History Channel, National Geographic, PBS, Sky Arts and Sky Atlantic, along with more amazing sport on Sky Sports Mix, available to all our customers.

We hope our customers understand that we have been working on their behalf and will always do that. We thank them for their support.

Source:

http://www.sky.com/discoveringmore

You will find that this is exactly the same stance Virgin Media have been taking for Sky Atlantic, they say they have been trying to get it for their customers for a reasonable price for years but Sky have always valued the channel way above what VM think it is worth, and that VM offer plenty of blah blah blah, now the boot is on the other foot, like i say posturing...
Anybody remember when the Sky basics channels where removed from VM? A deal was done eventually.
Liberty Global where always going to take this stance, they are the world's biggest cable company.

[bsmith1]

But in the meantime it may force more customers the leave this money grabbing company.

Wake up and smell the roses:p

[bassethound]

Looks like its going dark at midnight tomorrow

[n4cer]

If these channels do go its unlikely Sky will discount our subscrition but we can have a go or possibly even terminate contracts early thats for sure..have a look here

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/protect/2017/01/sky-tv-customers-could-lose-13-channels-amid-discovery-row---your-rights-if-affected

[copex]

from the link above

UPDATE 8pm, Tue 31 Jan: We've just heard that Sky has reached an agreement with Discovery to continue showing its channels as part of your Sky package.

[copex]

Great news, we can confirm that Sky will continue to carry the Discovery and Eurosport channels. This means you can still watch channels including: Animal Planet, Discovery HD, Discovery History, Discovery Home & Health, Discovery Science, Discovery Shed, Discovery Turbo, DMAX, Eurosport1, Eurosport2, Investigation Discovery, TLC and Quest.

We are also delighted to announce a new deal with PBS America that will bring the best of PBS's factual programming to Sky, covering history, science, current affairs, arts and culture. We are adding over 1,000 hours of programming to our On Demand service from channels like History and National Geographic. This means ours customers can enjoy the very best factual programming available.

From http://www.sky.com/discoveringmore

[nsw9154]

so why have all my Discovery Channels gone and are not available on my Duo2 sat setup now will i have to do a re scan to get them back :confused:

[nsw9154]

just checked again and my Discovery Chanel's are back i must have caught them in the process of being re-installed :thumbsup::D