What sets NOW (formerly NOW TV) apart from the rest of Sky’s lineup is the model: no satellite dish, no fixed contract, and no line rental. Instead of a subscription you commit to, you buy access through flexible Memberships (Entertainment, Cinema, and Sports) on day, week, or rolling monthly passes, and each pass unlocks its matching catalogue for as long as you keep it. That structure shapes almost every screen in the app, because entitlement is not a single yes-or-no flag but a set of passes that can start, lapse, and overlap.
I contributed to NOW after it moved off a shared cross-platform codebase to fully native Android and iOS apps. The rewrite meant rebuilding the browse, playback, and account surfaces on each platform’s own media stack rather than a common abstraction layer, which is where most of the interesting engineering sat.
Membership and Entitlement
Because NOW sells passes rather than a flat subscription, the client has to reconcile what you can watch against which Memberships are currently active. Entitlement drives what appears in the browse rails, what plays, and what stays downloaded:
- Pass-based access: Entertainment, Cinema, and Sports Memberships each unlock their own catalogue, bought as day, week, or rolling monthly passes with no long-term contract
- Live sports and events: A Sports Membership opens up live Sky Sports channels and specific live events, gated on the pass being active at play time
- Downloads tied to entitlement: Saved movies and shows remain playable only while the relevant Membership and licence are valid
Features
- Live TV and linear channels: Live Sky channels with an electronic programme guide sitting alongside on-demand content, plus pause and restart on supported channels
- On-demand library: Thousands of boxsets, films, and series organised into rails and collections, with continue-watching and resume that follow you across devices
- Offline downloads: Save selected movies and shows to a phone or tablet for offline viewing, subject to licensing and Membership entitlements
- Profiles and parental controls: Separate household profiles, a Kids profile, and PIN-gated age ratings and restricted content
- 4K Ultra HD, HDR, and Dolby Atmos: Premium picture and immersive audio on supported titles and devices, with quality adapting to the available connection
- 60+ devices: One account streaming to phones, tablets, smart TVs, consoles, and streaming sticks
Tech Stack
- Native Android client in Kotlin, replacing the earlier cross-platform implementation
- Native iOS client in Swift, replacing the earlier cross-platform implementation
- ExoPlayer/Media3 on Android and AVPlayer on iOS for platform media playback
- Widevine on Android and FairPlay on iOS for studio-grade content protection
- Adaptive bitrate streaming (HLS/DASH) that scales up to 4K as bandwidth allows
- Encrypted offline downloads with licence management for time-limited playback
- Multi-device account, entitlement, and resume-point synchronisation
On the native clients, the platform media stacks (ExoPlayer/Media3 with Widevine, AVPlayer with FairPlay) handle licence acquisition, secure decoding, and HDR/Dolby Atmos passthrough. What made NOW its own problem, versus a flat subscription service, was wiring those players to an entitlement model where a title can be watchable one day and locked the next depending on which pass is live.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is NOW and how is it different from a normal Sky subscription? NOW (formerly NOW TV) is Sky’s contract-free streaming service. There is no satellite dish and no fixed contract. You buy access through flexible Memberships (Entertainment, Cinema, Sports) on day, week, or rolling monthly passes instead of committing to a long-term plan.
Which platforms does NOW run on? It runs as native Android (Kotlin) and iOS (Swift) apps, and streams to phones, tablets, smart TVs, consoles, and streaming sticks across 60+ supported devices.
How does content protection work on NOW? Premium video is protected with studio-grade DRM, Widevine on Android and FairPlay on iOS, handled through the platform media stacks (ExoPlayer/Media3 and AVPlayer). Offline downloads are encrypted and carry time-limited licences tied to the relevant Membership.