Sky to extend availability of Go, plans to ‘supercharge’ Living

BSkyB is to make its Sky Go place-shifting service available on Android devices “in the coming months”, group commercial director Rob Webster confirmed at Informa’s Digital TV Summit this morning.

Webster said that Sky Go had recorded two million unique users, with 33 million pieces of content viewed in October alone.

Webster also confirmed that the UK pay TV broadcaster would increase its UK-originated entertainment content spend to £600 million (€700 million) by 2014, up from £380 million this year. He said the broadcaster had big plans for the Sky Living channel it acquired from Virgin Media last year. “We have massive plans to supercharge Sky Living to make it the biggest female-focused TV brand in the country,” he said.

Webster said that Sky would continue to increase the amount of money it spent on UK content. “We are just going to keep doing it, investing in the content that people value and are going to pay for” he said.

Webster said that Sky would welcome competition from new over-the-top players including Netflix and Lovefilm. He said that Hollywood movies would continue to be have a strong role in Sky’s offering. “There is always going to be a home for first run Hollywood movies through the Sky movie brand,” he said. “With all these different ways [of viewing content] there will be a premium on simplicity, ease of navigation and brand strength.”