Sky is tying together its arts coverage across its European operations with the opening of a production hub in Milan and the launch of Sky Arts channels in Germany and Austria to add to Sky Arte in Italy, launched in 2012.
The production hub will focus on creating pan-European cultural event programming, starting with Sky Arts Photographer of the Year in 2016. It will also commission programming across all Sky territories in Europe.
Sky’s UK took control of its German and Italian counterparts, Sky Deutchland and Sky Italia in a £6.88bn deal agreed last November, shedding the British Sky Broadcasting name in the process. The new group – which is 39.1% owed by 21st Century Fox – has more than £11bn in revenues and 21 million customers in the UK, Germany, Italy, Austria and Ireland.
The changes come as Sky Arts in the UK prepares to merges its two channels into one on 9 June, which Sky says will see a 10% increase in its programming budget. The move coincides with the launch of a Sky Arts on-demand service offering more than 1,000 hours of content.
Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch said: “Bringing the three Sky businesses together has opened up the opportunity to create new and exciting content on a greater scale. As an international company, we can raise our ambition and make a bigger impact for millions of customers across Europe.
“Today’s announcement represents a major new commitment which will bring customers high-quality and distinctive content covering the full breadth of the arts. It builds on Sky’s position as Europe’s leading entertainment company and underlines our ambition to invest at scale in even more of our own original content.”
