Apparatus for providing skew compensation in a patterned medium, such as but not limited to a self-assembling bit patterned medium. In accordance with some embodiments, the apparatus includes a transducer and a rotatable substrate. The substrate has a plurality of rows of spaced apart data recording dots. Each row of dots is angularly offset from an immediately adjacent row responsive to a skew angle of the transducer. The rows of dots are arranged into concentric zones of hypertracks. Each zone has an arcuate timing field segment which extends across the zone and is angularly discontinuous with the timing field segment of an immediately adjacent zone.