Sky steals the show and it won’t have to share the spoils

Outlook

Hitting the heights: Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Ontkean in ‘Twin Peaks’ (BBC)

It’s showtime at Sky, literally. The pay-TV group has signed a deal with US broadcaster CBS to give it access to all new and future programmes from the latter’s Showtime channel, plus much of its back catalogue. The headline-grabbing title will no doubt be David Lynch’s surreal chiller Twin Peaks (both the original series and its remake are covered) but there is plenty more besides.

Significantly, the deal, worth an estimated £75m a year, covers the whole of Europe and so includes Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. In Britain, content will be delivered via Sky Atlantic, which is not available on rival platforms Virgin Media and BT TV, and probably won’t ever be – despite Sky’s protestations that a deal could be done at the right price. It has become too important to the cause of drawing in subscribers and keeping their eyes on Sky channels.

Those without dishes interested in Lynch’s slice of small-town surrealism will have to buy passes for Sky’s streaming offshoot Now TV, or switch platforms. So the partnership, which will sit alongside an existing tie-up with Showtime’s US rival HBO, should prove to be a winner.

It is a shame that so few British shows are serving a similar function to Showtime’s American stable. Sky could redress the balance, if it has the flair and the fortitude to produce more dramas like Fortitude. But others also need to step up to the plate, or should that be take to the crease.