Discovery denies charging Sky $1bn

Discovery Communications has refuted claims that it asked for US$1bn from Sky Group for its portfolio of channels, as the carriage dispute between the two media giants goes on.

Jeremy Darroch

US factual giant Discovery faces seeing 12 of its channels, including Discovery, TLC and Eurosport, being pulled from Sky’s UK platform and streaming service Now TV this week after claiming it is not receiving a “fair price” for its content.

A similar situation is brewing between Sky Deutschland and Discovery in Germany.

But a Discovery spokesman told C21 that Sky’s claims that Discovery was demanding close to US$1bn for its channels portfolio was “unfortunately based on alternative facts.”

“The truth is Sky pay us less now than they did in 2006. We have asked for a few extra pennies per year for each Sky household. We would never choose to come off Sky and abandon our viewers, who we value enormously,” the spokesman said in a statement.

“We’ve been amazed and humbled by the incredible support from many of the millions who watch Discovery programmes on Sky every week.

“We hope Sky will listen to them and realise that while they provide top-quality sport and drama, people want variety and choice, and that includes all the programmes offered by Discovery’s network of channels including documentaries, sport, natural history and entertainment.”

Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch has previously said that Discovery’s share of linear viewing had been “down significantly now for an extended period of time.”

In a statement yesterday, Sky said: “We were prepared to pay a fair price for the Discovery and Eurosport channels and invest more in those channels to make them even better for our customers. We have offered hundreds of millions of pounds to Discovery, a US$12bn American business, but that wasn’t enough. They asked the Sky Group to pay close to £1bn for their portfolio of channels, many of which are in decline.

“Sadly, we have now had to prepare for Discovery to take their channels away from Sky customers, as they have threatened to do. It is Discovery’s choice to do this, not ours. We never left the negotiating table and they haven’t come back to it since they made their threats public this week.”

At the end of last week, TV personalities including David Emanuel and Ronnie O’Sullivan took to social media to keep Discovery’s 12 channels on Sky using the #KeepDiscovery hashtag.

Discovery Channel, TLC, ID, Eurosport, Discovery History, Animal Planet, Discovery Shed, Home and Health, DMax, Discovery Science and Discovery Turbo are all affected by the dispute.