Sky Living Rebrands To Sky Witness, Picks Up Shondaland’s ‘For the People’
Sky Living is getting a new name – Sky Witness – the broadcast has announced today. The change is to reflect the channel’s focus on procedural dramas.
The name Sky Living is a hangover from then the channel launched as UK Living back in 1993. It has been through a number of iterations since then (i.e. Living, Living TV and finally Sky Living), but now Sky has decided to drop the Living brand entirely.
“Living has historically been a lifestyle brand and we don’t do lifestyle any more,” commented Sky director of programmes Zai Bennett. “Our primetime schedule is entire premium, network procedural dramas. We wanted to have a more appropriate brand that works for the content. ‘Witness’ is a great shorthand and does a lot of heavy lifting.”
He makes a fair point. Whilst there is a lot of love for the shows on Sky Living, the branding itself has been rather muddled, and doesn’t really reflect the channels current output. They go on to stress that you won’t be losing any of your favourite procedural dramas from the network. In fact, you will be getting more! A couple of shows had already been announced, such as Ryan Murphy’s ‘9-1-1’ and the Alan Cumming drama ‘Instinct’. However, they have also announced they have picked up MGM Television’s mini-series ‘The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair’ and Shondaland legal drama ‘For The People’.
Based on the novel by Joël Dicker, ‘The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair’ sees Patrick Dempsey star as Harry, a literary icon who suddenly finds himself indicted for murder after the body of a young girl is found buried on his property. Ben Schnetzer, Damon Wayans Jr and Virginia Madsen also star.
‘For The People’ is set in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (a.k.a. “The Mother Court”). The show follows six talented young lawyers working on opposite sides of the law and handling the most high-profile and high-stakes federal cases in the country. These young lawyers will be put to the test both personally and professionally as their lives intersect in and out of America’s most prestigious trial court.
The change over from Sky Living to Sky Witness will happen on Monday, 6th August 2018.
