Sky One
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| Sky One | |
|---|---|
| Missing image New_sky_one_logo.jpg Image:new_sky_one_logo.jpg | |
| Formerly Called | Satellite Television Limited (until 1984)
Sky Channel (until 1989) |
| Sister Channel | Sky Mix |
| Launched: | Summer 1982 |
| Audience Share (Aug 2004[1] (http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/monthreports.cfm?report=monthgmulti)): | 1.9% |
| Owned By: | BSkyB |
| Web Address: | www.skyone.co.uk |
| Availability | |
| Terrestrial Analogue: | Not Available |
| Terrestrial Digital: | Not Currently Available (was available from 1998-2002 via ONdigital/ITV Digital) |
| Satellite: | Sky Digital Channel 106 |
| Cable: | NTL Channel 140 or 30
Telewest Digital Channel 120 Telewest Analogue Channel 21 Chorus Communications Analogue, all areas. |
Sky One is British Sky Broadcasting's flagship entertainment channel in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
| Contents |
Origins
The channel grew out of Britain's first satellite TV channel, named Satellite Television Limited, launched independently in the summer of 1982 and distributed on a small number of British and European cable television systems. In 1984 the channel was bought by Rupert Murdoch's company and renamed Sky Channel. Most of the programming in these early years consisted of cheap syndicated American programming, mostly taken from 16mm film copies, which was interrupted by frequent commercials in a variety of languages.
Sky Television
When Murdoch expanded his satellite operation by launching Sky Television in 1989, Sky Channel was included in the package and its programming remained much the same, with a few international travel documentaries thrown in to add a small amount of variety. In mid-1989 the channel was renamed Sky One, but it was not until 1990-1 that it began to acquire more recent programming, an early success being Moonlighting, which the BBC had previously screened but not repeated. Sky One also picked up some programming (and more importantly, advertisers) from its merger with BSB's Galaxy Channel. In 1993 Sky One was encrypted as part of the Sky subscription package, and could no longer be viewed outside the UK and Ireland without fraudulently exporting a box, or receiving it over cable.
Premiere screenings
With better programming came greater confidence and bigger budgets, and the channel began to rely more and more heavily on premiere screenings of US series, many of them from Murdoch's Fox Network in the United States. An early hit was The Simpsons, which has been a Sky One fixture ever since. Once the series had accumulated sufficient episodes Sky One began running as many as three episodes every day of the week, with new episodes (if any) usually airing on Sunday. Sky also acquired rights to premiere screenings of the Star Trek franchise, beginning with Season 4 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also premiered The X-Files in Britain along with episodes of the popular Stargate-SG1 series. More recently it has acquired seasons 3 and 4 of 24, as well as Stargate: Atlantis, Nip/Tuck, Las Vegas, Battlestar Galactica (2003) and Rescue Me.
Home grown programmes
In recent years Sky One has started commissioning UK-made programming such as Dream Team, a soccer-based drama series; The Strangerers (a science fiction sitcom that was dropped after one series and never repeated despite its high production values); Al Murray's sitcom Time Gentlemen Please; and Baddiel's Syndrome. Less successful was Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show. It also screens many "reality" shows such as Ibiza Uncovered.
Recent history
The channel now broadcasts 16:9 widescreen programmes in their original format, although all trailers and commercials are in 4:3.
A companion channel, Sky Two, launched on September 1, 1996 but was not a success and closed after just one year, on August 31, 1997. More recently, Sky One Mix (since renamed Sky Mix) was launched as a "catch-up" channel, screening repeats of key Sky One programmes later in the same week.
Former BBC Radio 1 DJ Claire Sturgess has been the "voice" of Sky One since 2001. As Sky One's only announcer, her voice-overs are pre-recorded once a week and played out by an automated system.
On September 21st 2004, Sky One relaunched again with another new logo and on-air presentation package.
See also
External links
- Official website (http://www.skyone.co.uk/)
- Sky Channel & Sky One (http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/skychannel.html) from the TV Ark (http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/)
- Sky TV Launch (http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/skyindex/sky_launch.html) from the TV Ark (http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/)