Now TV's 'Sky Sports' Channel Comes to Apple TV in UK

MacRumors · Dec 17, 2013

Apple TV users in the United Kingdom gained a new channel today with the addition of Now TV's "Sky Sports", notes Pocket-lint. The channel allows users to purchase £9.99 day passes providing access to six different Sky Sports channels.

If there is a particular sporting event you want to watch, you can purchase a Sky Sports Now TV Day Pass through the app which will unlock all six Sky Sports channels for 24 hours. A Day Pass costs £9.99 and although that might seem hefty in comparison to a monthly Sky Sports subscription through Sky, Virgin Media or other TV services, it's great for those who don't want a regular contract and really only want to watch a Formula One race or cricket test match, for example.

Apple has been making regular updates to its Apple TV content offerings over the last six months, and just last week added support for ABC, Bloomberg, Crackle, and KORTV in the United States, with several of the channels available in other countries as well.

(Thanks for the photos, Henry!)

Article Link: Now TV's 'Sky Sports' Channel Comes to Apple TV in UK

playalistic · Dec 17, 2013

Where the heck is iPlayer, give us something useful dangit!

Madmic23 · Dec 17, 2013

Is there really someone out there who would pay that much to watch darts?

I'm sure there's something good on the other 5 channels.

Elijahg · Dec 17, 2013

Yuck. I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

Their rather unscrupulous advertising turns me off. For example on their TV ad, they go on and on saying "If you can't afford Sky's monthly contract, paying just £9.99 will give you a pass to watch Sky Sports!" Virtual tickets fly into the screen, stacking atop one another. For a brief moment they show that the pass is only for 24 hours, before covering it with another ticket saying £9.99 in big text. I can't find the ad on YT, but there are loads of complaints about them on their FB page.

playalistic said:
Where the heck is iPlayer, give us something useful dangit!

Agreed, and ITV player and 4OD, where art thou?!?

JaySoul · Dec 17, 2013

This is massive news.

The price is hefty, though.

I'd rather pay £3-5 to be able to just watch the football for a few hours. That's the price of a pint.

henrys130 · Dec 17, 2013

Elijahg said:
Yuck. I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

Their rather unscrupulous advertising turns me off. For example on their TV ad, they go on and on saying "If you can't afford Sky's monthly contract, paying just £9.99 will give you a pass to watch Sky Sports!" Virtual tickets fly into the screen, stacking atop one another. For a brief moment they show that the pass is only for 24 hours, before covering it with another ticket saying £9.99 in big text. I can't find the ad on YT, but there are loads of complaints about them on their FB page.

Agreed, and ITV player and 4OD, where art thou?!?

Yeah also bbc news channel, i was hoping for a sky go channel as well

murdoc158 · Dec 17, 2013

Bring this to the US so I can finally stop pirating F1 races. I'd gladly pay $10/race versus $120/month for cable. Heck, just bring Sky Sports F1 to the US and get rid of NBCSN.

Ballis · Dec 17, 2013

AppleTV apps are the worst. Bring on an AppStore so some talented people can have a go.

neilmacd · Dec 17, 2013

Ah dammit. Sky Sports F1 is the only reason I still have a satellite attached to my house. I always hoped it'd end up on Apple TV then I'd be able to ditch Sky/Virgin altogether. Never thought it would happen.

It's half done, but to watch F1 via Now TV would cost me more in a weekend than I pay for the whole package currently. Also doubt it'd be HD.

JUiCEJamie · Dec 17, 2013

I think most people are forgetting that this 'hobbyist' product is for a more niche customer. In the grand scheme of things "which I'm sure Apple are working towards" is to bring the whole of NowTV/Roku Channel store to Apple TV.

I'm a subscriber of Netflix through Apple TV and Sky Movies through Now TV. I'd certainly love Movies to come to Apple TV. I'm sure £8.99 on demand movies to the other millions of Apple TV customer would be quite appealing too.

Cherry picking these channels, just like we got the opportunity with iTunes albums is the future of TV. Compared to a huge Satellite/Cable subscription, this is a winner!!

Onwards and upwards.

everything-i · Dec 17, 2013

playalistic said:
Where the heck is iPlayer, give us something useful dangit!

Still can't believe there is no iPlayer, this is one of the few things that would make AppleTV worth buying in the UK. For that matter what about other catch up streaming services from other free to air broadcasters like ITV Player and 4OD.

fenderbass146 · Dec 17, 2013

How about they fix the ****ing netflix app. I am sick of using my my ps3 to stream netflix because for some damn reason it can't do hd even though all the other devices in my house do and the other apps on my aTV do (hulu, iTunes store etc) all stream in HD perfectly fine. Get your **** together Apple and Netflix. It's been two months of this crap and I am thinking about going to get a the roku thats only 37 bucks at best buy right now.

Kebabselector · Dec 17, 2013

everything-i said:
Still can't believe there is no iPlayer, this is one of the few things that would make AppleTV worth buying in the UK. For that matter what about other catch up streaming services from other free to air broadcasters like ITV Player and 4OD.

Maybe the You View consortium could create an app?

Anyway, another app to hide (don't want any Sky stuff on my appleTV)

atrevers · Dec 17, 2013

JUiCEJamie said:
Cherry picking these channels, just like we got the opportunity with iTunes albums is the future of TV. Compared to a huge Satellite/Cable subscription, this is a winner!!

Onwards and upwards.

Yep - also, makes you realise that Sky bringing Sky Sports to Apple TV, and the existence of Now TV and it's day passes in general, shows that they are concerned for the future of their business model and are trying to find alternatives to the old premium subscription model. I'd pay for Sky Sports if I could just pay for the bits that I want (Cricket, F1, Golf - although certain Cricket and F1 events should be on the protected list and available free to air anyway, but that's a different debate) - unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that I don't want to pay for. The future is the individual rights owners launching their own online channels as happens with some US sports. Then you'd get an F1 channel, a Premier League channel etc. I suspect the ECB (English Cricket Board) are working towards such a model given that they already stream test matches to the European mainland - seems to me that they're dipping their toe in the water.

9947273 · Dec 17, 2013

murdoc158 said:
Bring this to the US so I can finally stop pirating F1 races. I'd gladly pay $10/race versus $120/month for cable. Heck, just bring Sky Sports F1 to the US and get rid of NBCSN.

They wouldn't be able to do this as the licences they pay for will only cover UK. Wouldn't you be able to setup a VPN?

mw360 · Dec 17, 2013

Ballis said:
AppleTV apps are the worst. Bring on an AppStore so some talented people can have a go.

Its probably not happening because no matter how talented these people you refer to may be, they probably don't have multimillion dollar TV and movie content to deliver. I don't think Apple want this box full of to-do and weather apps, or even worse, media viewing apps that help users enjoy less than legal content streams.

The lack of iPlayer is odd, but it matches my suspicions that Apple is doing individual revenue deals with all the content providers, and with no deal there's no app. They're not going to consider 30p commission on an app sale to be adequate compensation for Sky to deliver a £90 per month subscription via Apple TV. It may be the BBC and Channel 4 aren't playing along because neither has profits which it can share with Apple.

9947273 · Dec 17, 2013

So to watch an F1 race (qualifying as well) you would have to buy two 24-hour passes as they are on different days, costing £19.98 per race, and there are ~20 races per season. Great deal there guys

bilbo--baggins · Dec 17, 2013

It's good to see this stuff being added but shame it's mostly Rubbish. Iplayer really is long overdue, stuff like Demand 5 is rubbish on other platforms so I'm not too worried that it's missing.

What I've been hoping for is Eurosport Player - as a cycling fan they have all the sports I'd ever watch.

£9.99 for a day pass is absurd.

Apple TV with Netflix and to play iTunes content is worth it's weight in gold, just a shame it's cluttered with loads of stuff I'll never use, when there is valuable stuff like iPlayer that's missing.

JUiCEJamie · Dec 17, 2013

09sroyal said:
So to watch an F1 race (qualifying as well) you would have to buy two 24-hour passes as they are on different days, costing £19.98 per race, and there are ~20 races per season. Great deal there guys

You do realise that that's not the intention of a Day Pass?
Simple maths tell you that if it's £19.98 per weekend, then sign up to Sky for it. They've cut their losses with Now TV in a very clever way, unfortunately it just doesn't appeal to you.

It appeals to 100,000's of others.

mw360 · Dec 17, 2013

atrevers said:
Yep - also, makes you realise that Sky bringing Sky Sports to Apple TV, and the existence of Now TV and it's day passes in general, shows that they are concerned for the future of their business model and are trying to find alternatives to the old premium subscription model. I'd pay for Sky Sports if I could just pay for the bits that I want (Cricket, F1, Golf - although certain Cricket and F1 events should be on the protected list and available free to air anyway, but that's a different debate) - unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that I don't want to pay for. The future is the individual rights owners launching their own online channels as happens with some US sports. Then you'd get an F1 channel, a Premier League channel etc. I suspect the ECB (English Cricket Board) are working towards such a model given that they already stream test matches to the European mainland - seems to me that they're dipping their toe in the water.

I suspect you'll find those individual purchases almost as expensive as a full package, or actually more. Sky knows you don't watch it all, and that nobody watches it all. They are charging you the maximum that they think you (or the average you-like person) will pay for the sports you do like. That price which you have already proven yourself wiling to pay, will not change if they take away your Romanian Darts and Dwarf Wrestling. You don't watch that stuff, so taking out of your package doesn't decrease its value to you.

69650 · Dec 17, 2013

The day pass is seriously overpriced. It would be much better if they added the Sky Sports Monthly Ticket. It does the same but provides a full month's Sky Sports access over the internet for £35/month (with no contract) rather than £10/day with the Now TV version.

Agree with all the other comments about adding the UK catchup channels. Apple simply does not understand the UK online TV market at all. The only online channels most people watch here are the catchup channels like BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand 5. Until they add those channels the Apple TV is a dead duck in the UK. All of the other streaming TV boxes you can buy here have some or all of these services so there's no reason for Apple to be the odd one out.

mw360 · Dec 17, 2013

Shaun said:
The day pass is seriously overpriced. It would be much better if they added the Sky Sports Monthly Ticket. It does the same but provides a full month's Sky Sports access over the internet for £35/month (with no contract) rather than £10/day with the Now TV version.

Agree with all the other comments about adding the UK catchup channels. Apple simply does not understand the UK online TV market at all. The only online channels most people watch here are the catchup channels like BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand 5. Until they add those channels the Apple TV is a dead duck in the UK. All of the other streaming TV boxes you can buy here have some or all of these services so there's no reason for Apple to be the odd one out.

£35 for a month isn't a great deal if you only want to watch 1 boxing match. £10 per day isn't a great deal if you want to watch a Test Match. They are all options, but generally the more you buy the cheaper the day rate is going to be.

JaySoul · Dec 17, 2013

Sky Sports are losing out on so much money due to people just streaming football matches.

This is a sensible step but the price is too high.

I wouldn't want 24 hours or 6 channels.

69650 · Dec 17, 2013

mw360 said:
£35 for a month isn't a great deal if you only want to watch 1 boxing match. £10 per day isn't a great deal if you want to watch a Test Match. They are all options, but generally the more you buy the cheaper the day rate is going to be.

Who only watches one sports event a year? Either you like sport or don't in my experience. I wouldn't pay £10/day I'd rather do without or just watch it down the pub. Most of the decent boxing fights are on pay per view now anyway so you still wouldn't get to see it for your £10/day as this doesn't include access to Sky Box Office.

£35/month is not bad compared to what you would have to pay for a Sky TV subscription package.

----------

JaySoul said:
Sky Sports are losing out on so much money due to people just streaming football matches.

This is a sensible step but the price is too high.

I wouldn't want 24 hours or 6 channels.

Where I live you can walk in to most pubs in the city centre and watch the local team play live at 3pm on Saturday afternoon because they all have the foreign satellite channels tuned in.

I don't know why they don't just have a Premier League Channel with all matches live for say £10/month available on Freeview, Sky and Cable. I bet they would make a packet.

obsoletepower · Dec 17, 2013

I am so tired of all these subscription-based channels and this one honestly takes the cake for being the most retarded. Who is really going to pay 10 pounds a day to watch some sports that you can watch for free in pubs? Honestly, we need to boycott and put out of business all these services that charge us. In this day and age people want **** for free, especially since we have 59 minutes of ads for ever 1 hour show.

Now TV's 'Sky Sports' Channel Comes to Apple TV in UK

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