Now TV brings contract-free Sky Sports streaming to Apple TV in the UK; no Sky Movies for now

Now TV, the contract-free, pay-as-you-go television streaming service from British broadcaster Sky, is now available on Apple TV in the UK. Oddly, the service will only support the Sky Sports Day Pass, which offers 24-hours of unlimited access to Sky’s six sports channels, out of the gate.

With Apple’s petite set-top box, viewers are able to bill the pass – currently £9.99 – to their existing iTunes account and access the following: Sky Sports 1, 2, 3, 4, Sky Sports F1 and Sky Sports News.

Now TV was launched in March 2012 on PC, Mac and Android as a streaming service for its movie channels exclusively. In the interim, Sky has rolled out support for iOS, Roku, YouView, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, thereby covering almost all major hardware platforms in the living room.

Support for Apple TV is notable, although the omission of Sky’s entertainment channels, including Sky Movies, will be a disappointment to some. We’ve reached out to ask whether they’ll be added down the line, although a forum thread on the Now TV site suggests that it might be a long wait:

“Although we are able to offer AirPlay and HDMI mirroring for Sky Sports on NOW TV, due to our licenses, we don’t currently support this for Sky Movies,” a moderator said in September. “We are working on this, so please keep checking for updates on our site or on our Community.”

Image Credit: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images