Game of Thrones for a fiver as Now TV adds subscription
Sky's Now TV service has just added a monthly subscription deal, starting at £5 per month, for all its entertainment channels live and on demand.
Winter is coming -- you might have noticed -- and with it cosy new entertainments on your Internet-connected devices. Sky's Now TV service has just added a monthly subscription deal, starting at £5 per month, for all its entertainment channels, including Sky Atlantic, so you can see brand-new episodes of shows like Game of Thrones and Mad Men when they air.
Your fiver bags you live and on-demand shows from Sky Atlantic, Sky 1, Discovery, MTV, Comedy Central, Disney and Fox, among other channels. Sky says £5 is an "introductory offer", however, until 31 March 2014.
The Now TV Entertainment Month Pass isn't available on every Now TV app -- it's out today on the £10 Now TV Box, Roku devices, the PlayStation 3 and your computer's browser. A "phased roll out" will bring it to the iPhone and iPad, Xbox 360, LG smart TVs and "selected Android smart phones" over the coming months.
Sky's not got the best record when it comes to making its apps available for Android devices. The list of supported phones is on Now TV's site and although it includes the Galaxy S3 and S4, Nexus 4, Xperia Z and several HTC phones, it's hardly comprehensive. HTC One owners are bang out of luck, for example -- and there's no Android tablets at all.
Currently the only place to see Game of Thrones online legally in the UK is Tesco's Blinkbox, which charges by the episode, and started showing the most recent series a few months after it had aired on Sky.
Now TV doesn't have the on-demand rights to all the programmes Sky's ever shown. You can only see Game of Thrones, for example, when Sky Atlantic actually airs it -- episodes 6 and 7 of season 2 are being shown again on Sunday at 9pm, but you can't watch it at any other time. Similarly, you can catch up on the first episode of the new series of Boardwalk Empire, but none of the previous series.
Other treats coming up this month on the Entertainment Pass include Karl Pilkington: The Moaning of Life, Dracula, The Tunnel, and American Horror Story. You can also see all three series of The Walking Dead and all five seasons of The Wire.
Do you think a fiver's a good deal? Are you disappointed it's not available on your Android device? Stream your thoughts into the comments below, or over on our reasonably priced Facebook page.
Update: Clarified availability of on-demand shows and the introductory period.