Sky Movies genre update

[Sky Movies Team]

We've been reading your comments about the re-brand of Sky Movies with interest. While some of you welcome the changes, there are others who still want to know more about why we've done it and how this benefits you as a viewer. We hope this post will answer your questions.

First, why we did it? We decided to re-brand Sky Movies following eighteen months of customer research in which we found that you wanted an easier-to-navigate film service that gave you greater control and flexibility. You told us that you make most of your movie choices based on what genre of film you’re in the mood for. Our genre-based line-up has been designed to make it easier for you to find the type of film that you want to watch - so you know exactly where to head whether you're in the mood for a comedy or you fancy a horror flick.

Our aim is to provide the complete movie service for movie lovers and it is why we revamped the Sky Movies service. It is also why we launched Sky Anytime on PC allowing those of you who take Sky Movies 1 and 2 to download movies at no additional cost. It is why we launched Sky Movies Magazine - created by our friends at Total Film. It is why we're the only service provider to offer two HD movie channels, and it is also why we have remained committed to providing you movies uninterrupted by advertising breaks.

One of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the changes, which we’ve found on the forums, is that some of you think you're getting fewer movies as a result. We want to make it very clear that this is not the case. Sky Movies offers you exactly the same number of movies as before the re-brand. Our exclusive deals with all the major film studios mean we will continue to show 90% of the top box-office hits of the previous year – around 250 Sky Movies’ premieres in all, alongside our large collection of your favourite classic films. Indeed, now that we have a channel dedicated to independent film, we will be looking to increase our range of contemporary and classic independent titles.

The idea behind Premiere and Premiere +1 is to provide you with regular, easy access to the newest films on the service at a time that suits you – particularly if you don’t yet have Sky+. Each of our 5 premieres a week are now shown twice a night (eg 8pm & 9pm, 10pm & 11pm etc), every night for a week. So for example, over the next month it’ll be easier than ever before to catch the hottest new titles such as Capote, United 93, Miami Vice, and X Men: The Last Stand.

Some of you have also commented on the limited number of hours on some Sky Movie channels. We have listened to what you have to say and have now put plans in place to extend the hours of these channels from next month. We’ll keep you updated on this.

Some of you are also wondering why you are more frequently being asked to enter PINs to access a movie. Again, to satisfy your desire for more choice, with Ofcom's approval, for the first time we can now show you 12 and 15 rated movies before the watershed hour of 8pm across all of our movie channels. However, we have to safeguard against children watching unsuitable content, which means asking you to enter your PIN when you watch these movies. We hope that those of you without children will see this as a small inconvenience for a good cause. Dropping the PIN would mean a narrower choice of movies during the day.

We hope that this post has answered some of your questions. We will continue to read your comments on the forums and if you find updates like these useful, please let us know.

Thanks

The Sky Movies Team

[Jonstone]

These changes are all well and good for people who have sky+ but what about people who haven't?

After a hard days work I come home, play with my children for a couple of hours then put them to bed around 8 p.m.

I sit down in front of the television to watch a film for some well earned relaxation and what do I find on sky premier? The same film that was on the day before, and the day before, and the day before!

How is it giving people more choice to have the same films on every day at the same times?

If you can only watch sky premier at one time of day then this channel now limits you to one film per week.

To me that is a poorer service and has made me seriously consider cancelling my sky subscription and going freeview and a dvd rental club instead

[mobrule]

Originally Posted by Sky Movies Team

Some of you have also commented on the limited number of hours on some Sky Movie channels. We have listened to what you have to say and have now put plans in place to extend the hours of these channels from next month. We’ll keep you updated on this.

Do you also have plans in place to remove the silly genre line up? I would like to have more choice in what films are showing at the same time.
ie. two or three comedies instead of just the one.

Typically, that seems to be the stock response I've received from Sky. There wasn't much wrong with the line up before April. I now struggle to find a decent movie to watch/record.

Also, does the fewer repeats, you are trying to convince us are not there, include Premiere/+1 repeating the same 5 films for a week or not?

[fortean]

Jonstone has a very valid point. It would be much better to rotate the films on Premier +1 so that the first film shown on Saturday became the last film shown on Sunday; all the others moving forward one time slot. This way people without Sky+ get a different film at 8:00PM every day. Having a 1 hour delay for the second channel is not much use when that very same channel is repeated the next day, and the next, and the next. Only if you were showing different films on Premier each day would Premier +1 have some value.

I have Sky+ and I can see how this effects people without Sky+ more than those with it. In fact when you have Sky+ the +1 hour is rarely of any use on normal channels and for a channel that's repeated daily I can't see why Sky+ users would ever need the +1 hour channel; Premier is a +1 day channel anyway.

[gd2]

I gather that this was done following consultation with subscribers but you won't find anybody on these forums who was consulted!

Even though you plan to increase the hours on the channels we still have fewer channels to choose from. We now have only 10 channels rather than 12 and of these two are the same, meaning we have three fewer channels, when will these be replaced?

Whilst we may have the same number of movies , the movies are not as recent as they use to be, we have the likes of Top Gun and Captain Ron as headliners when a month ago these Blockbuster bargain bucket films wouldn't have seen the light of day on SKY. The only channels that don't seem to have suffered a loss of quality are the HD ones which few of us get.

The churn rate has risen since the new genre based lineup was launched and this is because you have less choice.

[Knyght_byte]

I sadly have to agree that the new Movies shake up is not a good one. I am quite happy with the other elements of my Sky package, but I have recently been forced to use Blockbuster Online for movies as even before the new lineup i was seeing less and less choice on the movie channels....also less and less of the action movies were showing with DD soundtracks.....

As a case in point, the other night, Sky Premier (that word means the best or number one) you were showing AVP (Alien Versus Predator).....in conventional stereo sound......your premier channel, showing an action packed movie but without Dolby Digital?.....(just thought I would add that you have shown AVP before with DD so you definitely have it available)

I think Sky need to work hard and sort out the mess with the movie channels, I think i'd rather wait a day for my Blockbuster films than pay the fee for Sky Movies at the moment....

[Fusewire]

I was a Sky Movies subscriber for more years than I care to remember, I cancelled after the recent change.

Just some points I would like to make Sky Movies Team....

1. I wasn't consulted about the changes, and I am yet to hear anyone who was, I would welcome anyone to post here who was consulted in order to see what form the consultation took.

2. As previously mentioned by Knight_byte there are many films that are no longer shown in DD when they previously were, which points to a degredation in the service to me. (DD was, and still would be, a major selling point for sky+ for many of us)

3. You insist that there are the same number of films shown per month, but this is only the case if you have SkyHD and can access the HD channels. As I only had sky+ I was actually getting less choice as there are now less movies channels that I can view and two of those channels are showing the same content all week - not much use to anyone who has sky+ again another degredation in the service (although I accept there may be the same number of films showing in total across all movies channels there are less that the non HD movies subsciber can view).

In my opinion you really have got this one wrong.

I think you would get a very warm reception from many (as well as hang on to a few more subscribers) if you were to reverse the change to the EPG and put it back to how it was before and start showing films in DD again.

[stockyvillage]

I have to disagree about getting a better hd film service with hd,we are in the same boat.I am lucky if i can find more than 5 films a week that have not been shown already.All I can to say to SKY is that this sounds like a costcutting experiment and us the customers.Who by the way pay a lot of money for your services are the ones who are getting screwed.

[WATTS]

Originally Posted by Sky Movies Team

Some of you have also commented on the limited number of hours on some Sky Movie channels. We have listened to what you have to say and have now put plans in place to extend the hours of these channels from next month. We’ll keep you updated on this.

Hi,

This is good news at least and thanks for this.

Some of you are also wondering why you are more frequently being asked to enter PINs to access a movie. Again, to satisfy your desire for more choice, with Ofcom's approval, for the first time we can now show you 12 and 15 rated movies before the watershed hour of 8pm across all of our movie channels. However, we have to safeguard against children watching unsuitable content, which means asking you to enter your PIN when you watch these movies. We hope that those of you without children will see this as a small inconvenience for a good cause. Dropping the PIN would mean a narrower choice of movies during the day.

I have children and think this is totally fair. I mean im no prude and let my 9 year old daughter watch older/ish films cert15 i think are ok and welcome the safety net just in case.
At least its better than the stupid old watershed rule which was out of date and spolit it for down to earth people because of the old fuddy duddy old gits who also wrote into points of view.

We hope that this post has answered some of your questions. We will continue to read your comments on the forums and if you find updates like these useful, please let us know.Thanks
The Sky Movies Team

Yes it has been usefull and with increasing the the movie times next month i think its fair to say its just (for me at least) a matter of getting used to the new system. Sure there are a few issues but no doubt sky will work out these problems and hopefully you could provide feedback to us members here on these forums?

I would like to say/add 3 things i would love to happen sooner rather than later in the hope that you read this post.

1. A dedicated Premiere HD Channel to run alongside the Premiere SD channel.
Maybe at first you could just show bigger up coming movies like xmen3 and such then as your HD team expand the source HD material then show more of less known titles too on this channel.

2. More HD channels overall.

3. More converted movies to HD.

I know this is specific to me and me owning an HD box but i know i speak for a lot of other members on here with HD.

Thanks for your time.

[city fan]

Originally Posted by WATTS

Hi,

This is good news at least and thanks for this.



I have children and think this is totally fair. I mean im no prude and let my 9 year old daughter watch older/ish films cert15 i think are ok and welcome the safety net just in case.
At least its better than the stupid old watershed rule which was out of date and spolit it for down to earth people because of the old fuddy duddy old gits who also wrote into points of view.



Yes it has been usefull and with increasing the the movie times next month i think its fair to say its just (for me at least) a matter of getting used to the new system. Sure there are a few issues but no doubt sky will work out these problems and hopefully you could provide feedback to us members here on these forums?

I would like to say/add 3 things i would love to happen sooner rather than later in the hope that you read this post.

1. A dedicated Premiere HD Channel to run alongside the Premiere SD channel.
Maybe at first you could just show bigger up coming movies like xmen3 and such then as your HD team expand the source HD material then show more of less known titles too on this channel.

2. More HD channels overall.

3. More converted movies to HD.

I know this is specific to me and me owning an HD box but i know i speak for a lot of other members on here with HD.

Thanks for your time.

Yep totally agree here. More HD content

Generally happy with the Sky service. The change in the EPG does not bother me in the slightest. I never look at the titles of the channels anyway. I just look at the names of the movies and if I like the sound of it put it in my planner. Sorted.

Why anybody complains about the PIN is beyond me. Just go to services and shut it off. I never have to enter a PIN to watch a movie

[fortean]

Originally Posted by city fan

Why anybody complains about the PIN is beyond me. Just go to services and shut it off. I never have to enter a PIN to watch a movie

How have you managed that? I have set Pre-Watershed PIN to OFF and I still get asked for the PIN.

[city fan]

Originally Posted by fortean

How have you managed that? I have set Pre-Watershed PIN to OFF and I still get asked for the PIN.

I think in services and then parental control. I've made sure that PIN request is off for all types of film 15, 18 etc.

However I don't think I've ever tried to watch an 18 during the day. Is this when people say the always get asked for a PIN no matter what their settings? It's still true that I havn't been asked for a PIN though

[Degas]

Well that is easily the most generic post I have ever read in my life 'Sky Movies Team' (if that is really your name ), did you copy and past that straight from the 'To be read by our telephone complaints team when people ring up and complain about the crappy new movies layout' script??

As I mentioned in the other thread, the new system offers so much less variety at any given time of the day due to there being a lack of genre choice spread over the channels and THERE ARE less movies for none hi-def customers, how you can get rid of three channels, cut down actual channel up time and repeat the same movies on two channels all week and still be adamant about that point beggers belief.

Finally, I doubt that anyone is complaining about PIN protection as it is clearly a good idea to have movies protected when shown earlier, it seems you are using this point to remove focus from the other glaring errors.

Simon.

[Bernie Steak]

Posted much the same in the HD forum, but feel it's worth my time venting here too....

Originally Posted by Sky Movies Team

First, why we did it? We decided to re-brand Sky Movies following eighteen months of customer research in which we found that you wanted an easier-to-navigate film service that gave you greater control and flexibility. You told us that you make most of your movie choices based on what genre of film you’re in the mood for. Our genre-based line-up has been designed to make it easier for you to find the type of film that you want to watch - so you know exactly where to head whether you're in the mood for a comedy or you fancy a horror flick.

"You", as in "us" (the reader). Where are this "You", speak up, you need a good verbal kicking.

It just seems that it's harder to catch the "premiers" on the HD movie channels now than when they had more variety per channel. I can see why this could make it easier for those without HD (or not worried about watching the latest premiers in HD), but it just seems now the HD channels appear to show more old films (and of course lots of Star Wars still) than they did previously.

I've only had Movies for a few months, took me a while to justify it to myself (especially with the cost of HD too), but with this new system I'm on the verge of calling it off again. Really feel it's gone downhill so far as the two HD movie channels programming is concerned.

[Knyght_byte]

I have no problem with the PIN system btw, felt it fair to add that, all you have to do if you cant remember it is sellotape it to the remote or use a magic marker etc....

but the content has most definitely dropped......what with a number of Sky1 series finishing up over the next few weeks, well, to be honest its mostly just Sky Sports that my family would need and we could get that from Virgin....im well out of my contract so could happily switch over without issues.....beginning to wonder if Sky is worth the deal, i wouldnt mind getting the HD box, but not if i'm going to have the content restricted.....i'd rather spend the money on a HD-DVD player...