Phil Wilkinson-Jones | October 23rd, 2023

NOW TV channels

NOW TV is one of the biggest and most popular streaming services around – and with good reason. Not only does it offer thousands of movies and box sets on demand, subscribers get access to live Sky channels without being tied into a lengthy contract.

There are five NOW TV memberships to choose from and while it would be expensive to sign up to all of them, individually they each offer pretty good value for money. In this guide we’ll look at the channels included with each NOW TV Membership as well as the sort of on demand content you can expect to see.

NOW TV Entertainment Membership

The NOW TV Entertainment Membership features some of the most popular Sky channels as well as an absolute tonne of TV box sets including some of the biggest TV hits of recent years – we’re talking about the likes of House of the Dragon, Chernobyl and Succession. Let’s take a look at the channels on offer.

• Sky Atlantic – The home of so many of Sky’s biggest shows, with recent hits including Game of Thrones, Euphoria and Winning Time. Sky Atlantic isn’t available from Virgin Media, BT or TalkTalk so a Sky TV subscription or a NOW TV Entertainment Membership is the only way to watch it and indeed access any of its content on catch-up short of outright buying it on a competing service or blu-ray/DVD
• Sky One – Sky One has been showing a mix of comedy, drama, entertainment shows and documentaries for a long old time now, including the likes of Manifest, Cobra Rebellion and The Lazarus Project
• Sky History – Formerly known as the History Channel, Sky History has documentaries, reality shows and big budget dramas such as Vikings
• Sky Nature – Hundreds of episodes of nature programmes including exclusive David Attenborough documentaries and Ultra HD content
• Sky Witness – Sky Witness iused to be called Sky Living and features mostly crime or medical-based US drama series
• Sky Comedy – The home of US comedy on Sky, there are old favourites like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Will & Grace, plus new episodes of long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live
• Sky Crime – If you’re a fan of true crime documentaries, this is the channel for you
• Sky Documentaries – This channel features more than 100 award-winning and talked-about documentaries on sporting moments, scandals, celebrities, politicians and more
• Sky Showcase – A new channel brand showcasing fresh shows and familiar favourites from across the Sky range of channels
• Sky Kids – Is both a channels and a pack of channels, and you'll have access to all of them on NOW TV. Those channels are: Sky Kids, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Nick Jr too, Nicktoons, Cartoon Network, Cartoonito, Boomerang and Baby TV
• Sky Sci-fi – Is a relatively new channel from Sky focusing on Sci-fi shows like FROM and LOST. However, it does seem to have replaced SyFy, which as a channel that has been running for far longer and with a lot of its own unique content will definitely be missed by sci-fi fans
• MTV – Does still feature music although MTV is much more about reality TV these days with shows such as Cribs and Ex on the Beach
• Comedy Central – Another channel bringing you bucket loads of American comedy shows, like Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, and South Park
• Peacock – Is a general entertainment channel with a lot of exclusive content, from TV series to movies and more. Recognisable shows you can watch exclusively on Peacock include Bates Motel, Saved By The Bell and Real Housewives
• NBC News NOW – An excellent rolling, 24-hour news channel from NBC, whose news output and coverage is some of the best in the world
• GOLD – More classic British comedy shows than you can shake a stick at, we’re talking the likes of Blackadder, Only Fools and Horses and Porridge
• Alibi – As the name suggests, a combination of US and UK TV shows with a heavy focus on crimebusting – think detective shows in the main
• BSL Zone – A collection of programmes made in British Sign Language

NOW TV Sky Sports Membership

The Sky Sports Membership gives you access to 11 Sky Sports channels. There are no box sets to be found here but the channels, when not showing live events, have a good range of documentaries, classic clips and big-name interviews.

Sky Sports Premier League

With hundreds of Premier League games shown live every season, this is still the place to watch English football’s top flight, despite the emergence of BT Sport.

Sky Sports Football

Sky Sports’ second football channel focuses on live coverage of international football, the EFL, League Cup, Scottish football and European leagues.

Sky Sports Cricket

The big draw here is that Sky have the rights to England’s Test matches, but there’s also coverage of T20 competitions, the County Championship and more.

Sky Sports Formula 1

The only channel on which to watch live coverage of every race of the F1 season (the British Grand Prix is also shown on Channel 4 for free). All practice and qualifying sessions are also shown live. Read more about Sky Sports F1.

Sky Sports Golf

Featuring live coverage of events including the European and PGA tour, the Masters, Open, US Open, PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup.

Sky Sports Racing

This horse racing channel, formerly known as At The Races, features daily tips for those who like a bet, live results, racecards, interviews and more.

Sky Sports Action

Sky Sports Action features live coverage of NBA, Rugby Union & League, Darts, badminton, NFL and more.

Sky Sports Main Event

Features the big events from the dedicated sports channels in one place and serves as an additional place for live content when there are, for example, two Premier League games being shown live simultaneously.

Sky Sports Mix

As the name suggests, there’s a bit of everything on here. Includes a lot of the sports that don’t have a dedicated channel like Rugby Union, Rugby League, swimming, basketball and tennis.

Sky Sports Arena

Another channel showing a mix of sports, including darts, superbikes and boxing.

Sky Sports News

Headlines and breaking news from the world of sport. The channel’s coverage of football’s transfer deadline day is always popular, as is Soccer Saturday as Jeff Stelling keeps you up to date with all the latest scores.

NOW TV Sky Cinema Membership

The Sky Cinema Membership gives you access to 11 live channels and also includes thousands of movies available to watch on demand. Here’s the full list of channels – we won’t attempt to go into detail describing them because the names speak for themselves.

• Sky Cinema Premiere
• Sky Cinema Hits
• Sky Cinema Action
• Sky Cinema Animation
• Sky Cinema Family
• Sky Cinema Comedy
• Sky Cinema Sci-Fi Horror
• Sky Cinema Thriller
• Sky Cinema Greats
• Sky Cinema Drama
• Sky Cinema Select
• Sky Cinema Premiere+1

The names are correct at the time of writing. Sometimes Sky either changes one of these names or adds an additional channel to celebrate a holiday, a particular film franchise or a new release. Recently there has been Sky Cinema Christmas, Sky Cinema Harry Potter and Sky Cinema Star Wars.

NOW TV Kids Membership

Sky no longer sells a separate Kids Membership option. Instead the kids channels have been rolled into the NOW TV Entertainment pass. This seems generous, but is likely a result of lack of interest in a standalone kids pack on NOW TV.

• Sky Kids
• Boomerang
• Cartoonito
• Cartoon Network
• Nickelodeon
• Nick Jr
• Nick Jr Too
• NickToons
• Baby TV

NOW TV hayu Membership

There are no live channels included with the NOW TV Hayu Membership but it does give you access to the latest episodes of top US reality TV shows like Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Million Dollar Listing New York, Backyard Envy and Get A Room with Carson & Thom. There are more than 5,000 episodes available altogether so you can binge watch to your heart’s content.