Sky Atlantic: How to watch

Dan Howdle • October 10th, 2024

Sky Atlantic is still the best, and in many cases only way to watch top shows from Sky, Showtime and HBO in the UK short of waiting till the whole season is out and buying it. Up until very recently it was only available if you had a Sky or NOW TV subscription. But that picture has changed thanks to substantial changes in the way BT, EE and TalkTalk provide their TV packages. Read on for the full picture.

Sky Atlantic providers

Provider	Sky Atlantic	NOW TV App
Sky TV
Virgin TV
EE TV (also from BT)
NOW TV
TalkTalk TV

Virgin Media TV

Unfortunately there's no way to watch Sky Atlantic on Virgin TV as a listed channel the way you would watch it on Sky. However, that's not to say there is no way to watch it at all if you're with Virgin Media. You just need to be prepared to employ a little trickery.

That’s where Sky’s streaming service, NOW TV, comes in. Although you cannot watch NOW TV via your Virgin TV 360 box, you can use your mobile, tablet, Smart TV, games console, streaming device (think Roku, Google Chromecast, Apple TV and so on) to get instant access to Sky Atlantic, just by signing up to the NOW TV Entertainment Membership.

So you can do it by supplementing Virgin TV with a secondary service. It's a workaround that's far from ideal, and since you can get Sky TV on its own now, getting Virgin Media Broadband along with a separate Sky Stream subscription would be the best way to approach this.

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NOW TV on Virgin Media

The NOW Entertainment Membership includes the following live entertainment channels: Sky Max, Sky Showcase, Sky Witness, Sky Atlantic, Sky Comedy, Sky Documentaries, Sky History, Sky Nature, Gold, Sky Crime, Comedy Central, Sky Arts, MTV, Sky Sci-Fi, and Alibi. You also get on-demand shows from these channels (except Sky Showcase) and no longer have access to NBC News NOW. Additionally, Peacock is no longer available on Sky platforms in Europe.

The bad news is if you're only after Sky Atlantic and you're on Virgin TV, you're going to be paying extra for a lot of duplicate content. Then again it really doesn't cost much so you'll have to weigh the costs and benefits as they apply to you.

NOW Entertainment also includes six live kids' channels: Boomerang, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Cartoonito, Nick Jr and Nicktoons. Plus, on-demand shows are available for all these channels except Cartoonito. And you get brilliant box sets from Milkshake!, CBeebies and CBBC too.

NOW TV memberships automatically renew every 30 days until you cancel, so you can get your premium TV fix and keep the flexibility to cancel at any time without having to sign up to a long contract. As a new customer you'll get a 7-day free trial of NOW TV Boost, which allows you to watch on more than one device, in Full HD and with surround sound. And NOW TV has recently launched Ultraboost which allows you to watch selected content in 4K.

If you're only interested in one show, and you're unlikely to dive into the 500 other box sets on offer, it's always worth timing it exactly so your sign-up coincides as closely as possible with the first episode and ends with the last. Then, when your favourite series ends, or if you just get bored, you can unsubscribe from your NOW TV Entertainment Membership at any time.

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Sky TV

Sky owns, manages and runs Sky Atlantic so it makes sense to sign up to get the best experience. If you want to take advantage of all the gorgeous costume detail in House of the Dragon, you can watch Sky Atlantic in glorious 4K Ultra HD with a Sky Stream subscription, provided you add the UHD & Atmos pack.

The basic Sky Stream Entertainment deal is the provider's cheapest TV package, but still offers you over 150 channels to choose from, including Sky Atlantic. You can even get Sky Stream as a one-month rolling contract now, though it is cheaper if you sign up to the full 24 months.

You'll get a Sky Stream Puck in the post (unless you choose to sign up to Sky Glass, where you'll get an actual TV). All you have to do is connect it to your TV, and you're set and ready to watch. There's also the benefit of Sky Go, which comes for free with any Sky TV subscription and lets you watch Sky Atlantic on your mobile, tablet, laptop or through a games console.

You can watch Sky Go anywhere you can get an internet connection, whether that's on your home wi-fi, public wi-fi, or over your mobile network. If you're using your phone's data allowance by streaming Sky Go over mobile, just be careful and keep an eye on how much data you're using; streaming Sky Atlantic with Sky Go will drain your data like nobody's business.

NOW TV

If you have a compatible device, you can watch Sky Atlantic through a NOW TV Entertainment Membership and take your favourite shows with you wherever you go. If you're on a tablet, or Android or iOS smartphone and you want to watch your NOW TV Entertainment Membership on the move, you'll need to download the NOW TV app from Google Play Store or from the App Store.

Extra devices supported by NOW TV include the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Playstation 4 and Playstation 5, as well as LG (not 2014 or 2015 versions), Sony (running Android OS 8.0 or later), HiSense and Samsung smart TVs (2016 models and later. No Samsung Serif TVs at all), streaming devices like the NOW TV smart box and Smart Stick, all models of the Roku boxes and players, Amazon Fire TV Stick (2nd gen or later), EE TV Box Pro, Amazon Fire TV Cube (2nd gen), Chromecast (2nd gen or later), Apple TV HD (4th gen) or 4K, and the YouView Box (model numbers DTR-T1000, DTR-T1010 and the TalkTalk TV Hub.

EE TV (formerly BT TV)

Sky Atlantic is available on your EE TV set-top box via the NOW TV app. NOW TV now forms the core of the EE TV experience, and that being the case, you can absolutely watch Sky Atlantic on EE TV. EE TV is offered in bundles with both EE Broadband and BT Broadband (BT TV has been discontinued with existing customers switched across to EE TV).

TalkTalk TV

Similarly to EE TV, TalkTalk TV has a NOW TV subscription at its core, while its excellent TalkTalk TV Hub also takes on all the other responsibilities regarding Freeview channels and anything else you choose to bolt in. This means that Sky Atlantic comes as standard with TalkTalk TV.

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