Sky Atlantic


Sky Atlantic is a British pay television channel owned by Sky Group Limited. The channel is primarily dedicated to imported programmes from the United States, and holds the domestic rights to HBO and Showtime dramas, but also broadcast many original Sky productions. It is exclusively available on the Sky satellite TV platform and Sky's Now TV platform.
Sky Deutschland broadcasts a German-language version of the channel in Germany and Austria, while Sky Italia broadcasts an Italian-language version of the channel in Italy. Their programming is also dominated by HBO and Showtime series, usually dubbed in the domestic language. The Italian channel also premieres Sky Originals produced in the country, like The Young Pope and Gomorrah.

Background

Sky Atlantic launched on 1 February 2011 on Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Separated channels with the same name operate in Germany, Austria and Italy.
Sky Atlantic is available in both standard definition and high definition, the latter on Sky Atlantic HD. Stuart Murphy extended his responsibilities to become director of programmes for Sky One, Sky Two, Pick and Sky Atlantic. On 5 May 2011, Elaine Pyke, the head of drama at Sky, was promoted to director of Sky Atlantic, reporting to Murphy.
Programmes on the channel are also offered to Sky customers via on-demand channels including the On Demand and Sky Go services and Now TV. Both BT TV and Virgin Media had held talks with Sky over the new channel but have been unable to agree a carriage deal, in Virgin's case due to pricing.
It was announced on 25 October 2010 that Sky Atlantic would launch on Sky channel 108, which was previously occupied by Sky 3. Sky Atlantic also utilises the HD swap bouquet system developed by Sky, which switches SD channels with HD channels for HD Pack subscribers, meaning Sky Atlantic HD is on channel 108 and the standard definition version appears on channel 808.

Sky Atlantic +1

A one-hour timeshift of Sky Atlantic started broadcasting on 20 September 2012 on channel 173. It moved to channel 170 on 9 June 2015 as part of a reshuffle which also included the closure of Sky 3D, Sky Livingit becoming Real Lives and Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2 merging to become simply Sky Arts. It moved to channel 217 on 18 July 2017 as part of the Sky Sports reshuffle which included Sky Sports Mix moving to entertainment, and again to 208 on 1 May 2018 as part of Sky's major EPG reshuffle due to Sky Atlantic being channel 108.

Programming

Sky Atlantic relies heavily on screenings of US television programmes, with 50% of all programming coming from HBO. Although the channel mainly screens dramas, there are blocks in the schedule dedicated to comedies and movies The launch of Sky Atlantic followed the broadcaster's £150m, five-year deal to buy exclusive UK and Irish TV rights to HBO's entire archive, new HBO programming and a first-look deal on all co-productions.
In January 2016, Sky expanded the portfolio shown on Atlantic, after purchasing exclusive rights to Showtime programming; however, Sky does not have rights to all Showtime programmes, as some of the shows are aired on Channel 4.
By 2020, with Sky now owned by Comcast, some shows shifted to networks that are part of Comcast's NBCUniversal unit, such as series 1 & 2 of Westworld on Syfy.

First run US programmes

For Italian Sky Atlantic original programmes see Sky Atlantic.
The following is a list of the ten most watched programmes on Sky Atlantic, based on Live +7 data supplied by BARB up to 20 May 2019. The number of viewers does not include repeats or Irish ratings. Additionally, all of these episodes were the most viewed programme of the week on non-terrestrial television in the UK. Game of Thrones is Sky's most popular show.
RankProgrammeEpisodeNumber of ViewersDate
1Game of Thrones8.04 – The Last of the Starks5,430,4516 May 2019
2Game of Thrones8.02 – A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms5,266,03422 April 2019
4Game of Thrones8.05 – The Bells5,039,35513 May 2019
3Game of Thrones8.06 – The Iron Throne5,011,27720 May 2019
5Game of Thrones8.03 – The Long Night4,983,91029 April 2019
6Game of Thrones8.01 – Winterfell4,380,83415 April 2019
7Game of Thrones7.07 – The Dragon and the Wolf3,535,00028 August 2017
8Game of Thrones7.01 – Dragonstone3,487,00017 July 2017
9Game of Thrones7.05 – Eastwatch3,420,00014 August 2017
10Game of Thrones7.03 – The Queen's Justice3,263,00031 July 2017