Sky Atlantic

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Sky Atlantic is a television channel owned and operated by Sky plc. It broadcasts in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Separate channels with the same name also operate in Germany, Italy and Austria. This article is for the channel available in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Video Sky Atlantic

Background

Sky Atlantic launched on 1 February 2011 on Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

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. 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.

Maps Sky Atlantic

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.

First run premium US drama

Game of Thrones (Final season 2019)
Ray Donovan
Billions
Westworld
Succession

Original Programming

Tin Star
Riviera
Patrick Melrose
Save Me
Fortitude
Britannia

Most watched programme

The following is a list of the ten most watched programmes on Sky Atlantic (all of them being episodes of Game of Thrones), based on Live +7 data supplied by BARB up to 28 August 2017. 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, with the exception of "Book of the Stranger" which was overtaken by an episode of The Big Bang Theory.