HBO is coming to the U.K.

Billboards like this one are all over London at the moment:

And I saw an ad for this new Sky HBO service at the multiplex on Friday night. Either people are actually very excited about HBO’s programming -- such as Boardwalk Empire -- coming to the U.K. on an official, this-is-HBO basis, or else Sky just wants people to be excited.

What is sort of interesting is that the kind of programming that in the States is only considered suitable for the niche of pay cable is already airing in the U.K. on broadcast basic. Showtime’s Nurse Jackie, for instance, is airing on the BBC in a regular evening timeslot, when just anyone could see it. Shocking. (Sky, by contrast, is a pay cable network.)