by spudthedestroyer on Thu Jan 12, 2006 5:12 pm
confusing? only if you forget what you said previously, about universal hd airing episodes.
you just said universal was airing eps 1-10 next month, sky has also just started airing series 2. Because these two channels are now showing it it means that its no longer exclusive to scifi us like it used to be and the secondry bidders can now show the programme (sky 1 partially pays for BSG)
Your thinking about companies not distributions and channels. Even though a company owns the rights, if they've only paid for distribution on one channel, they can only show it on that one channel. Channels also work as cells, they sell or transfer programmes between each other by contract. Sky1 has to pay for fox shows, just as much as it has to pay for its own viewing. Its because fox us can make profits on uk distribution (or they may not have distribution rights in the uk), so there's a bid for programming in the uk. They normally show bias towards sky, but for example, simpsons and futurama are shown on Sky1 first, then they go to terrestrial tv, both are/were on channel 4 when sky one looses exclusivity after the contract runs up. Channels are very autonomous, the parent company is the benefactor but they are usual independant and have certain budgets and control over scheduling and programming.
A lot of the time its like Sony and the GTA games, sony buys the rights, but eventually it gets to the point where Rockstar can release it on other platforms (6-8 months later).
Universal owns Scifi, Fox owns Sky1, but all four are totally independant (that is the universal channel and the fox channel) and have to pay for, or at least negotiate, the transfer of programmes.
Sky has far more spending power than any other channel. We have a scifi uk channel that's also owned by universal, but they can't afford bsg so they didn't get it, even though though the parent companies do.
All to do with distribution and contract, Scifi us has paid for the first series exclusively, now that that times over, universal can repeat them and sky1 can now show BSG. I also assume sky1 has waited because in england, we don't break and they hadn't completed the series when it started. BSG will be on every week for 22weeks without pause now on sky 1 i'd imagine. Whether sky1 gets to the end of its run who knows...
remember Farscape, well it started in the states first (series 4) and then the BBC took over and we actually got the last episode first because the bbc just showed it every week without break. It all depends on whether scifi pause or break during the run of the last half of the series or not.
So back to my comment, scifi is no longer exclusive owner of airing rights, the fact that sky 1 is now airing the programme and so is universal hd suggests that the period of exclusivity is over. Sky 1 may have just been waiting for them to complete (or get into the position where filming would be by the end of the run) filming of the series, but i doubt it. So now there's a clean run for sky1 to air the programme. Its happened with buffy, angel, farscape, etc. that the uk has got the last episodes first, and because sky1 is far better quality picture than scifi, that might be a good thing, since there'll likely be some decent widescreen rips with far smaller watermarks by the end of the series. That is if they have any more breaks in scheduling.