SKY UK To Lose Discovery Package

What is changing?

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

Which channels does this include?

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.

Can I still watch now?

Yes, the channels will be available until 31 January. At any point from 1 February, Discovery may remove them from the Sky platform.

Can I no longer watch these channels on Sky?

Yes, the channels will be available until 1 February. At any point, from 1 February, Discovery may remove them from the Sky platform.

I regularly watch the Discovery channels. What can I watch on Sky instead?

Sky offers a huge range of unmissable content, from award winning documentaries to thrilling entertainment.

We've an incredible line-up of programming scheduled from partners like Nat Geo, History and CI, as well as a fantastic range of Sky Original content.

Upcoming programmes include: Big Cat Week, Explorer, Wild Strategies and Killing Regan from Nat Geo; Black Sails, Obama Legacy and Hunting Hitler from History; and Portrait Artist of the Year, Tate Walks and Freddie Fries Down Under from Sky Arts/Sky 1.

We also have more than 800 episodes of documentaries available on demand for Variety and Box Sets customers to watch whenever and wherever they want, including Origins, Ross Kemp Extreme World and the David Attenborough Collection.

Source : https://www.sky.com/help/articles/changes-to-sky-channels#

- - - 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/bus…nel-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."

An update directly from SKY to 'set the record straight'

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

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.

.....and now a statement from Discovery group

fe6b1f1ff432b5da6fecb0e.jpg

So I have a friend that works in the Sky call centre in Livingston and they just sent me this from their phone

91331ca59f3e9117c0234.jpg