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Game of Thrones on Sky 1
derek500
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Season one of Game of Thrones is coming to Sky1 from Monday, September 10th at 10pm.
Good news for first time viewers and Virgin Media customers.
Good news for first time viewers and Virgin Media customers.
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Good news. I imagine that season two won't get an airing on Sky 1 until this time next year though.
They really need to resolve the Sky Atlantic issue.
I would have thought they could go straight to season two in readiness for season three in April on Atlantic.
I really would like to move to Virgin if only they had Sky Atlantic (it seems to be one of my most watched channels)
What issue? This is Sky's premium US Drama channel for their exclusive HBO deal. It is a key selling point of Sky. It's business.
Case in point.
It is probably my most watched channel also, and I am unlikely to move to another provider while it's like this.
It may not get many new subsribers (just this one channel) but it probably helps to keep those already subscribed.
It's just a shame that everyone who has Virgin Media is unable to watch the channel at any price. There's plenty of people who aren't able to have Sky and most people consider restricting access to your channels to your own platform as uncompetitive behaviour.
Look, i'm not one of those people who believe's that people have a 'right' to watch a tv show. Just that it's clearly not ideal to have competition on the basis of restricting access to your channels rather than on price or quality of service.
Sky are expensive. Their kit is shoddy (a Sky box seems to last about 2 years for me). Their practices, such as not allowing you to record with sky+ when you switch to freesat channels only, are just mean.
yet I still pay them every month...
We don't want to turn this into a pro/anti sky thread so i'll just wrap up by saying that I agree generally that Sky has the right to charge what it likes for premium content but it shouldn't use it a way of restricting choice between platforms. If we go down that road it will lead to less choice for customers all round.
Sky customers might not care about that at the moment but if BT limits it's premiership coverage to it's own platform and VM decided to start up it's own channel again and restrict access then they quickly would.
Neither situation would stop VM from offering the channel on a paid for, stand alone basis. Though i accept that's not an ideal solution.
This is how HBO always do DVDs. They are protecting their US subscription revenue. Seems to work for them.
On the contrary, the more time goes by the more the show's value goes down and the more likely they are to let other outlets have it. Letting VM have it now could act as a good advert. They should repeat season 2 on Sky Atlantic just after season 1 finishes on Sky, and let the Sky viewers know they are doing it.
It's not delayed, they did the same thing with Season One, it was available in March shortly before Season Two started again on HBO in the US.
I said delay, not delayed, however for whatever reason its just a fail from HBO, I really dont see how HBO can benefit at all by delaying the release
I have noticed that in the UK DVD's of TV seasons (what you call "series") usually come out right after the final episode has aired on TV. That is the opposite of the American approach. In the US, if the show is coming back for another season, the DVD of the previous season only comes out shortly before the next season is about to begin on TV. That isn't just an HBO thing. It is completely normal for US TV. I think the idea behind it is to not encourage people to avoid watching a show on TV thinking they can just pick up the DVD right away.
HBO benefit because they're a cable subscription channel and it protects those subcriptions both in the US and also in the UK where the series' are shown at a later date. Plus, as MoreTears has said, this is common practice for all US channels not just HBO. The release of the DVD is used to promote the new series about to start.
I wonder if they will show some of sky atlantics other shows that have already been shown like broadwalk empire and blue bloods some time in the future on sky one
Thats not totally true as many US series come out on blu ray months before the next season starts, dexter is one I can think of off the top of my head, guess there are many more. Some may be a few months after they are shown but none are almost a year like Game of thrones.
As has been said numerous times already....
Dexter finished Season 6 in the US in early December. The Season 6 DVD just came out in the US on August 14. So that is exactly like what HBO does with Game Of Thrones -- waiting till about a month before the next season starts to release the previous season's DVD.
Well not really interested in what the USA do.
In the UK the dexter season 6 blu ray came out close on 3 months before the next season starts in the US which backs up my point, guess this is not the only one either.
However you look at it waiting a year is totally unacceptable and is the exception rather then the norm. I cant recall another series where there is a gap of almost a year between the TV show and the blu ray release.
Even on the game of thrones forums people are moaning about it so its clearly not the norm.
I have already explained to you what the "norm" is in the US, but of course you say you don't care about what is done in the USA. Dexter is not an HBO show. I can't think of any HBO shows that are released on DVD in the UK before they are released on DVD in the US.
Possibly not if what's said in this thread holds true:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1670446&highlight=March