After months of uncertainty and frustration for UK fans, The Walking Dead franchise has finally found a new home in the UK – on Sky and its streaming service NOW.
Sky and NOW have stepped up to accommodate the hungry horde of fans, announcing a partnership with AMC Networks that will bring the original series and its highly anticipated spinoffs to their platforms.
Fans can now get ready to sink their teeth into The Walking Dead: Dead City, The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon, and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, all of which will finally be coming to our shores in the coming months.
That’s still quite a long time (in modern terms, at least) after the original airings in the US – but late is better than never.
Additionally, all 11 seasons of the original The Walking Dead series, which are currently available on Disney+ in the UK, will also be coming to Sky and NOW – as soon as next week.
A Long-Awaited Arrival
The news comes as a relief to British followers of the post-apocalyptic saga, who have been grappling with a broadcasting blackout of the latest instalments in the franchise.
The Walking Dead’s journey in the UK has been marked by a series of channel shifts and platform changes.
Initially airing on the Fox Channel, the show transitioned to Disney+ under the Star category after Fox’s closure in 2021.
The first major spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, found a home on Amazon’s Prime Video, where it remains available.
The short-lived The Walking Dead: World Beyond is also available on Prime Video in the UK.
However, the more recent spinoffs had been notably absent from UK screens, sparking discontent among fans who were eager to dive deeper into the expanding universe of the franchise (not to mention being swarmed with spoilers on social media).
In the US, those shows are available on AMC’s standalone streaming service, AMC+, which is not available in the UK. AMC also used to have a dedicated channel in the UK, which was available on BT TV – but that channel was shut down in 2023.
But now, the newer spinoffs are finally coming to the UK.
The Walking Dead Returning To Sky
From May 2024, Sky and NOW will be the exclusive home to all new series in The Walking Dead Universe, starting with the original series.
All 11 seasons of The Walking Dead will be available on-demand on Sky and NOW from Sunday, May 19, 2024 allowing fans to binge-watch the entire post-apocalyptic horror series.
In addition, the new spinoffs will slowly trickle into Sky – along with their future seasons:
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
The highly anticipated spinoff, The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, starring Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira, recently finished airing its 6 episodes in the US.
It will be released exclusively on Sky and NOW from Friday, May 31.
The series sees the return of beloved characters Rick Grimes and Michonne in an epic love story set in a changed world.
Kept apart by distance and an unstoppable power, Rick and Michonne find themselves in a place and situation unlike any they’ve ever known before.
The series explores whether they can find each other and who they are in this new reality.
The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon
The Norman Reedus-led The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon will be available on Sky and NOW in August 2024.
The series follows Daryl Dixon’s struggle in France after washing ashore, as he tries to piece together how he got there and why.
Daryl’s journey takes him through the unique Walker strains and provincial violence of France, with conflicts rooted in both pre-Walker personal histories and the country’s deep history.
Along the way, he forms new connections and finds a renewed sense of hope.
Season 2 will also be coming to Sky and NOW, later in the year.
The Walking Dead: Dead City
The Walking Dead: Dead City, starring Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, will be available on Sky and NOW later in 2024.
The series sees old enemies Maggie and Negan forming a tenuous alliance to carry out a dangerous mission in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan.
As the pair moves deeper into the gritty depths of the walker-infested city, they discover that the traumas of their tumultuous past may prove just as great a threat as the dangers of the present.
Season 2 will follow in 2025.
Tales Of The Walking Dead, the anthology series that aired briefly on the AMC Channel in the UK, will not be coming to Sky.
“We are delighted to have found a new home for The Walking Dead Universe in the UK”, said Mike Pears, executive vice president of distribution and content sales for AMC Networks.
“The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live is the most successful series in the history of AMC+, even including the original series, so it is fitting that it will lead the way as Sky brings this entire universe to UK fans in the coming weeks and months on Sky and NOW.”
While Sky and NOW celebrate this new partnership, the fate of the original The Walking Dead series on Disney+ remains uncertain.
It appears the original series will remain on Disney’s streaming service for now (alongside its upcoming availability on Sky) – but we’re waiting for final confirmation from Disney.
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Great now we have to pay extra to skip the ads on Disney or any other streamer you can pay extra to not have ads in the episodes now forced with ads on Sky. Except if you go cheaper with Now TV that removes the ads with the add-on no such option for the more expensive sky customers wish they had gone with another streamer bad news for walking dead fans.
Why not iTVX?
Agreed at least with ITVX Premium we would not have had the ads forced on us unlike sky.