Sky will double its investment in non-sports programming over the next five years, according to the company’s managing director of content.
Sky claims it has been ‘raising its ambitions’ with regards to content spending after German and Italian operations were taken over by its UK-based company in 2014.
Gary Davey, managing director of content since 2015, said, “Our investments in non-sport programming over the next four to five years will double.
“Our entertainment budgets are growing at a faster rate than at any other point in our history. It’s a very good proposition.”
Despite dominating sports broadcasting over the past decade, the emergence of BT Sport as the company’s first major competitor has seen Sky turn their attention to a battle on two fronts, with OTT services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime threatening to dictate the entertainment market.
Sky’s total programming budget for 2015 was around £5 billion.
Davey added, “We really think through what is going to drive customer engagement and if we get entertainment programming right, then it is just as engaging as football and sports. It’s a question of timing.”
Davey also stated that Sky’s deal to secure exclusive rights to Showtime content would not have been possible without the scale of the new pan-European Sky operation.
