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LONDON — Rupert Murdoch‘s U.K. satellite pay TV operator BSkyB has inked a deal with British indie Entertainment Film Distributors for subscription pay TV and pay-per-view windows.
The deal means titles such as The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, Beautiful Creatures and The Host, will air across BSkyB’s Sky Movies.
Sky Movies will show releases from Entertainment Film Distributors across its On Demand service and channels, and on a rental basis via Sky Store and Sky Movies Box Office.
All films will be shown ad-free and uncut, and in HD, device and title permitting, Sky said.
It gives Sky Movies subscribers exclusive access to new titles from Entertainment Film Distributors “around six months after they have ended their run in cinemas.”
Once on Sky Movies, the films will be available on the service for more than a year, during which time they will not be available on any other TV channel or subscription service.
It gives Sky Movies a first subscription window for Playbook, the film for which Jennifer Lawrence won her best actress Oscar earlier this year.
Sky Movies customers will also have exclusive access to Entertainment Film Distributors’ back catalog, which includes Brokeback Mountain, The Departed, Gangs of New York, American Psycho and Ali.
The deal is a fillip for Sky in its ongoing battle with subscription video-on-demand services in the U.K., including Netflix, Tesco’s Blinkbox and Amazon’s LoveFilm as the battle for content first continues to rage.
Sky’s renewal with Entertainment Film Distributors follows the satellite operator’s move to ink similar deals with exclusive windows with Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Disney and Sony.
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