Sky Atlantic is a television channel owned by British Sky Broadcasting, which launched on 1 February 2011 on Sky in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Sky Atlantic is available in both standard definition and high definition, the latter on Sky Atlantic HD.Stuart Murphy extended his responsibilities to become director of programmes for Sky1, Sky2, Pick TV and Sky Atlantic. On 5 May 2011, Elaine Pyke, the head of drama at Sky, was promoted to director of Sky Atlantic, reporting to Murphy.

Programmes on the channel are also offered to Sky customers via on-demand channels including the Sky Anytime+ and Sky Go services. Both BT Vision and Virgin Media had held talks with BSkyB over the new channel but have been unable to agree a carriage deal, in Virgin's case due to pricing.

It was announced on 25 October 2010, that Sky Atlantic would launch on Sky channel 108, which was previously occupied by Sky3. Sky Atlantic also utilises the HD swap bouquet system developed by Sky, which switches SD channels with HD channels for HD Pack subscribers, meaning Sky Atlantic HD is on channel 108 and the standard definition version appears on channel 173.