Sky Deutschland, the German arm of Comcast-owned European pay-TV group Sky, is shutting down its scripted originals division, Sky unveiled on Thursday.
Sky Deutschland head Devesh Raj informed local staff early Thursday morning that the network will be wrapping up its originals department and shutting things down entirely next year. Series currently in production, such as season 4 of hit submarine drama Das Boot, will finish filming, but there will be no new commissions. Projects in development will be put into turnaround.
Sky Deutschland came late to the originals business, commissioning its first high-end series, Babylon Berlin, in 2015. Given today’s news, it’s unclear if that award-winning drama, whose fourth season airs this fall, will continue. Public broadcaster ARD is the main commissioning network on Babylon Berlin and the series has sold worldwide, including to Netflix in the U.S., but Sky’s exit will leave a major hole in the show’s budget if it has plans for a fifth season.
In a statement, Sky Deutschland said since it moved into originals production, “the entertainment industry, content landscape and viewer behavior have rapidly evolved as has Sky’s business. We are convinced we have a strong position in the market as a provider of high-quality acquired content, with our unbeatable sports offering and, with Sky Q, with the best aggregator of entertainment apps.”
The arrival of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and AppleTV+ to the German market has put pressure on Sky Deutschland and has driven up the cost of the original production. The network also faces competition for sports rights from the online streaming platform DAZN.
There has been widespread industry speculation that Comcast was looking to sell off Sky Deutschland, possibly to German commercial network ProSiebenSat.1, and trimming costs by shuttering its originals division could be a part of that.
It’s unlikely Comcast will make similar cuts at Sky’s originals operations in its other major markets, the U.K./Ireland and Italy. Sky’s operations there are much larger and more established with a long line of hit series, from Sky Italy’s Gomorrah to Gangs of London, Riveria and HBO co-production Chernobyl at Sky U.K.
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