Sky buys All Time 10s channels group

UK-based paycaster Sky has acquired Diagonal View, the digital channels company behind the All Time 10s and Football Daily online brands.

Sky has been in acquisitive mode in 2017, buying stakes in True North and Chrysalis Vision, and has now taken over nine-year-old Diagonal View.

Sky sees the acquisition, financial terms of which were not disclosed, as broadening its engagement with young, digital-first audiences who may not be taking pay TV services, and as a way of offering “greater brand-safe digital opportunities to advertisers”.

Diagonal View is best know for its All Time 10s channels, which offer social videos that rank a diverse range of topics, ranging from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air to unexplained phenomena. It has more than 15 million subscribers across channels, with more than one billion in the past year.

Diagonal View’s existing management team, including co-founder Matt Heiman, will continue to lad the business from within Sky, whose group director of advanced advertising Jamie West and director of digital sports and news David Gibbs will now support the unit.

“Our social channels complement Sky’s current portfolio – the prospect of our incredibly popular Football Daily channels collaborating with Sky, whose pedigree in this space is unrivalled, is extremely exciting,” said Heiman.

“Sky brings rights, expertise and scale. Diagonal View knows how to make content that digital natives enjoy watching and engaging with, so this partnership feels like a natural win-win for both us and Sky.”

On the digital side, Sky invested in digital rights management firm TRX in August last year, and has heavily invested in Asian SVOD service iFlix.

Diagonal View, meanwhile, in November entered into a deal with kids TV distributor Cake to create a digital content joint venture, Popcorn Digital.