Sky Go Extra offers download to view

Sky is launching a brand new subscription service, Sky Go Extra, which lets customers download the latest blockbuster films from Sky Movies and content from channels like Sky 1 and Sky Atlantic to watch offline when and where they want. This means customers can consume the content without the need for a Wi-Fi or 3G/4G connection.

Sky Go Extra therefore becomes the first mobile TV subscription service in the UK and Ireland to offer Hollywood movies to download and watch offline. Once downloaded, customers can store the films on their portable devices for up to 30 days.

Sky Go Extra customers can also register for Sky Go on up to four, rather than two, Internet-connected devices. The service costs £5 per month and is available to all Sky TV customers. The subscription fee makes it an important development for another reason: TV Everywhere has largely been a free value-add for Pay TV customers worldwide in order to assure their loyalty in an increasingly competitive marketplace. This demonstrates at least one way that service providers could start to monetize those investments.

Sky Go is Sky’s TV Everywhere offer, giving subscribers access to channels they already subscribe to but on more devices (access to live and on-demand programmes and films from up to 43 channels today). Download-to-watch-later is already available via BBC iPlayer on smartphones and tablets and this announcement confirms that there is now a new benchmark for multi-screen TV services. We should expect more and more content to become available for download to view.

Commuters using trains will be among the biggest winners but the list of use cases is a long one, including taking your content on a camping holiday or a flight.

Sky Atlantic, Sky 1, Sky Living and Sky Arts, as well as partner channels such as Nickelodeon and Disney, are available immediately for the download-to-view feature. Devices covered are smartphone, tablet, laptop or MacBook.

Sky Go now attracts more than 3 million unique users each quarter. Sky Go Extra is the latest development from Sky designed to give customers full control of their TV viewing. Sky’s TV On Demand service through the Sky+HD box now delivers hundreds of hours of catch-up TV from the BBC, ITV, Channel 5 and Sky channels alongside on-demand access to shows from a number of other leading channels including UKTV, MTV and Discovery.