back to article Sky bags UK HBO exclusive

Never saw The Wire, but I am told it is rather good. I won't be seeing it in a hurry either, now that Sky has slurped up HBO's entire library in a UK exclusive. The deal - worth £150m over five years, according to various reports - will see iconic American TV shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos , Sex and The City, True Blood …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Yes!

    Then maybe British TV channels will make british shows.

  2. Oliver 7
    Pirate

    All I can say is...

    Thank fuck for file-sharing!

  3. Code Monkey

    Ah well

    There's always BitTorrent ;o)

  4. dogged

    "It will also give people more reason to find US proxies."

    True story.

  5. Shane McCarrick

    Proxies and torrent sites

    This is the best news torrent sites and proxy server hosts could hope for....... Surely its time someone called 'time' on Skys abuse of its dominant market position? Certainly the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have been churning out some very decent content- but Skys action can only be described as an abuse of a dominant market position.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Bit Torrent

    So, even more people will torrent these shows.

    Anon, obviously....

  7. Tony S
    FAIL

    No!

    "A Sky rep told the Daily Mail that the deal would give people "more reasons" to subscribe"

    No - I don't think that it will actually.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    You Slaaaag!!

    Who needs this foreign stuff anyway, The Sweeney - best TV cop show ever. Time for a modern (definitely non-PC) update.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      title

      My dad's got a box set somewhere... about time I dig it out. Class show.

  9. Andy Tunnah

    good for those who don't pirate

    with sky buying them up won't it mean they'll be on a lot sooner than the several year gap currently being employed ?

    and ppl saying it'll give more reasons to pirate, yeah right, everyone pirates it unless its on the same or next day anyway :P

  10. Mark Talbot
    FAIL

    Shame

    As I will never give any money to the nut job aussie so I'll just have to find another outlet.

  11. Alex Walsh

    What about

    The co productions that the Beeb does with HBO?

    And George RR Martins Game of Thrones looks like a torrent essential now :(

  12. madferret
    FAIL

    Don't believe everything you read in the Daily Fail

    Poor journalism from El Reg. A minute's research would have told you that "iconic American TV shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos , Sex and The City" all ended some time ago and aren't scheduled for remakes.

    And yes, The Wire was good.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't believe everything you read in the Daily Fail

      Rather unkind... TV shows last forever, don't they?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Re: Daily Fail Reader

      "American TV shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos , Sex and The City" all ended some time ago"

      Who mentioned premiers? All these shows get repeated constantly across the various free-to-air channels. Until the existing contracts expire.

  13. Jonathan 29

    cheers

    I think part of the reason for this is to make the soon to launch anytime vod service more appealing, but it should also ensure that any decent new shows are aired in a timely fashion in HD. Maybe it is just me, but waiting for high def content to download from public trackers is getting a little tedious.

  14. Drefsab

    Good news

    I hope this will see more english shows being created and shown, as for the stuff I want to watch intead of paying sky I will just get it from the newsgroups ta very muchly before sky have shown it :)

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    title

    Nothing I'd miss.

  16. LuMan
    FAIL

    More reasons to subscribe?

    How about - "We won't charge you for a device to help you view the content, nor charge you a monthly subscription, nor charge you again for good stuff, like movies and sporting events, nor will we constantly bombard you with annoying advert breaks that can stretch a 23-minute run-time to about 45 minutes."

    There, that'd make me subscribe!

  17. AF
    Thumb Up

    Bad news for filesharing...

    At least Sky air US shows a lot closer to their US broadcast date (sometimes ahead of it). Removes one of the main justifications people have for downloading (still leaves the issue of how to easily transfer onto a portable device, though).

  18. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Sky is too unreliable for me

    I dont' know whether it was because of the financial crunch or something, but in my open plan office I hear more of my colleagues moaning about Sky lately. The latest today is them cutting off the end of a film; they sent the ending in to one of those small squares while the announcer gave details of what was up next ... while the film was still running!

    But I hear moans about their boxes and restrictions with regular monotony. My standard, cheap DVR recorder works fine on terestrial. If it fails, swap the hard drive out. Sorted. None of this sending boxes forward and backward, registering for this, hooking the phone line up for that.

    I actually did the maths on reruns, movies and all the rest of it and calculated that I can get the films I want to watch for a few quid here, there, or elsewhere, and it works out cheaper than having Sky, but also I get to watch them ... uncut ... AND I get all the specials ... that includes the odd series box from time to time also. PLUS I can then rip them down to my portable devices for viewing on the move ... I'd like to see Sky do THAT for its customers.

    The only time that my philosophy comes undone is sport, but as I only watch the mainstream stuff I get the major things on other channels anyway.

    I'm not HD or 3D yet; I don't need it. Standard def does me fine for the moment. There was a satelite dish fitted to the house when I bought it, but I had it taken down. By the time I'm ready to replace my TV there will be a plethora of nice, cheap, Freeview HD DVR's around to choose from.

    Sky? Virgin? Forget it. Not worth the money for me; not even the bundles.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Megaphone

    Length of advert breaks

    If I remember correctly HBO shows are broadcast without adverts, each HBO episode seems to be an hour long rather than the 40 minutes of show that normally fills a USA hour schedule slot.

    How's that going to work with Sky? Their advert breaks are ridiculously long, long enough to forget what was happening before the break.

    Yet another big plus for torrents... adverts are edited out for you.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another reason to subscribe?

    Perhaps, but it still doesn't override my main reason for not subscribing - that Rupert Murdoch is still alive.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    same day broadcast?

    thats pretty much they only way id be interested in getting sky

    if the internet gives me the show i want today but you are showing it in 3 days then the internet always wins

  22. Marco Alfarrobinha
    IT Angle

    ... or...

    ... you people could just find a job that paid well (mine does, hehe) and cough up the subscription. Last time I checked, most jobs in IT paid just about enough for a person to live well. If you are in IT and yours doesn't, then you are working for the wrong company. So, stop moaning about Sky's subscriptions, which are value for money in these capitalistic times, or go watch Freeview/Freesat or bugger off.

    Thanks.

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