Sky Unveils Multimillion Pound Investment in British Film

LONDON: Sky is making major new investments in feature-length British films, with family friendly titles for Sky Movies and docs for Sky Atlantic to begin rolling out in 2013.

The multimillion pound film investment adds to the platform’s previous commitments to ramping up its original drama, comedy, entertainment and arts series. BSkyB has said it will increase investment in home-grown programming to £600 million by 2014, a rise of more than 50 percent over three years.

Sky Movies will invest in TV movies aimed at the whole family over the next five years. New productions are already in development and Sky Movies is seeking pitches for other titles. A six figure development fund has been set up for Sky Movies titles, which should match the scale and ambition of productions like Treasure Island and Neverland. Green-lit features will have budgets of around £5 million.
 
Sky Atlantic HD is focusing on feature-length docs to fill a new peak time strand in early 2013. The initiative calls for the production of up to 12 prime-time landmark specials, and the channel is calling on producers to come up with "bold ideas."
 
Titles for both channels will be available on linear and on-demand.

“We know British programming resonates strongly with our customers so we’ve been building our capability and credibility in this area over the last couple of years," said Jeremy Darroch, Sky’s chief executive. "I’m very encouraged by the progress we’ve achieved so far, particularly in original comedy and drama, but we’re only at the start and we’re determined to raise our ambitions again and keep improving. We see a real opportunity in British films, where we’ve already invested millions in three feature-length productions with Sir David Attenborough. Now we intend to green light more family films for Sky customers and help more of the best documentary makers to bring the films they most want to make to the screen. This is an ambitious plan that will bring benefits to the wider creative industries as well as to Sky and our customers.”