Max, Showcase and Peacock — three changes at Sky announced this week

In a mix of channel realignment, name changing and content changing, Sky has tweaked and improved its channel content. We explain just what’s going on.

Sky Max and Sky Showcase

On Wednesday, Sky revealed two new/rebadged channels: Sky Max and Sky Showcase. These are the headlines of a group of channels, described as follows:

Sky Showcase: a linear only main event channel that will curate a selection of the top shows from across Sky’s portfolio of entertainment brands. So when you’re not sure what you’re in the mood for, Sky Showcase is the place to go to find something new to watch

Sky Max: a brand new linear channel and on demand service, that is the new home for Sky’s blockbuster entertainment, including some of your Sky favourites such as original dramas A Discovery of Witches and COBRA and original comedy entertainment including panel shows like A League of Their Own and the return of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Sky Max is where you’ll now find all the addictive blockbuster entertainment you know and love

Sky Comedy: now becomes the home of Sky Original Comedy including shows such as Code 404 and Hitmen Reloaded, that were previously on Sky One, alongside the Best of US comedy such as The Office US, PEN15 and Miracle Workers.

In simple terns, it looks to us like they’ve moved some comedy shows, changed Sky Originals to Sky Max and added a sampler channel. We’re sure we are over-simplifying.

Sky and Peacock

For people like us who watch the industry as a whole, this is possibly more interesting. Earlier this week, Comcast (who owns NBCUniversal, Sky and much else besides) announced strong figures for its streaming service Peacock (in amongst all the financial data). Dealine has the data in a more accessible form in this piece: basically they’ve had 54 million sign-ups and 20 million monthly active accounts as of this week. With the Tokyo Olympics they’ve also garnered a lot of minutes of viewer time.

More parochially, they’ve announced they will make:

Peacock available at no additional cost to nearly 20 million Sky customers in Europe. Beginning later this year, Peacock will make its international debut across Sky platforms, including Sky Q, NOW, and Sky Ticket, currently serving customers throughout the UK, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland.

Clearly good news for Sky customers, diversifying its content offering further.