Timeline of Sky Limited

This is a timeline of the history of Sky TV.

1980s

• 1980
  • Plans for a pan-European satellite television station are put together by Brian Haynes, back by backed by Guinness Mahon and Barclays Merchant Bank and in November Mr Haynes sets up Satellite Television Ltd. (SATV)[1][2]
• 1981
  • October – SATV begins test transmissions on the Orbital Test Satellite after the European Space Agency allowed the company to test the satellite for the use of commercial television, with an hour of light entertainment in English each night. The low-powered satellite forces it to broadcast to cable systems rather than directly to individual satellite dishes.
• 1982
  • 26 April – Satellite Television launches as a pan-European service. The channel was often referred to on-screen as Super Station Europe. However the channel is initially only available in some European countries, the first being Norway and Finland were the first two countries to permit the new service's transmission via cable, followed by Malta, Switzerland and West Germany.
• 1983
  • 27 June – News International becomes the majority shareholder of Satellite Television.[3]
  • 16 October – Satellite Television begins broadcasting in the UK.[4]
• 1984
  • 16 January – Satellite Television is renamed Sky Channel.
• 1985
  • No events.
• 1986
  • 2 April – The IBA invites bids from the private sector to operate a commercial service on three of the five DBS channels allocated to the UK in 1977 for satellite broadcasting.
  • 11 December – The IBA announces that BSB has been awarded a fifteen-year franchise to operate the satellite television service.[5]
• 1987
  • No events.
• 1988
  • 8 June – Having failed to become part of the BSB consortium, Rupert Murdoch announces plans to launch a four-channel service on the soon to be launched Astra satellite.[6]
  • 11 December – The satellite on which Sky Television will broadcast, Astra 1A, is successfully launched by communications satellite company SES.
• 1989
  • 5 February – Sky Television launches at 6 pm. The channel line-up consists of Sky Channel, Sky News, Sky Movies and Eurosport.
  • June – BSB is awarded the other two DBS channel slots, meaning that the service will launch with five channels. These two channels had originally been allocated to the BBC but were handed over for commercial use when the BBC dropped its plans to use the two channels on cost grounds.[7]
  • 31 July – Sky Channel becomes a UK and Ireland-only service and is renamed Sky One although for a short time after the relaunch, some of Sky Channel's former pan-European programming is broadcast in the hours before Eurosport's startup, and the programme block is branded as Sky Europe.

1990s

• 1990
  • 5 February – Sky Movies is encrypted, thereby becoming Sky's first pay channel.
  • 25 March – BSB launches. Its channels are Galaxy, Now, The Movie Channel, The Sports Channel and The Power Station. BSB had planned to launch in September 1989 but problems with the supply of receiving equipment had delayed the launch by six months.
  • 1 April – Sky Movies broadcasts its first special event – World Wrestling Federation's WrestleMania VI.
  • 2 November – Sky TV and BSB merge. The new company is called BSkyB.[8]
  • 2 December – Galaxy and Now are closed down and are replaced on the Marco Polo satellite by Sky One and Sky News although arts programmes are shown for a short time as a weekend opt-out service from Sky News.
• 1991
  • 8 April – The Power Station closes at 4 am.
  • 15 April — The Movie Channel launches on Astra 1B satellite with the first showing of 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. The ident was made by Pacific Data Images and heavily based on NBC's film opening used from 1987 to 1993.
  • 20 April – Sky Sports launches, replacing the BSB Sports Channel.
  • 6–22 May – Eurosport briefly closes after the competing Screensport channel had filed a complaint to the European Commission over its corporate structure.[9] TF1 Group subsequently steps in to replace BSkyB as Eurosport's joint owners.
  • 1 October – The Comedy Channel launches.
• 1992
  • February – TV-am closes its in-house news service and contracts out news bulletins to Sky News.
  • 18 May – Sky purchases the live rights to the newly formed football Premier League for £304 million.
  • 15 August – Sky Sports launches Sports Saturday. The programme follows the same format as the BBC's Grandstand programme featuring a mix of sporting action, concluding with the day's football results.
  • 16 August – To mark the start of Sky Sports's coverage of the Premier League, the channel launches an afternoon-long football programme called Super Sunday.
  • 1 September –
    • Sky Sports becomes a subscription channel.
    • Sky Movies stops showing non-movies content. It had previously shown selected premium content such as live boxing, music concerts and World Wrestling Federation due to it having being Sky's only encrypted channel and had been known as Sky Movies Plus.
  • 1 October – The Comedy Channel closes and is replaced by Sky Movies Gold, a "classic movies" service was added as a three-channel Sky Movies package. Rocky (starring Sylvester Stallone) was the first film is shown on the network.
  • 31 December – Sky stops broadcasting via the Marco Polo satellite.
• 1993
  • 1 February – British Sky Broadcasting introduces a new system of film ratings often used for various times, replacing the British Board of Film Classification certificates.
  • 1 September – Sky Multichannels launches.[10]
• 1994
  • 19 August – Sky Sports 2 launches, initially as a weekend-only service,
  • 3 October – Sky Soap and Sky Travel launch as part-time weekday channels.
• 1995
  • 1 November – Sky Sports Gold launches.
• 1996
  • 16 March – The boxing match between Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson is the UK's first pay-per-view event.
  • 16 August – Sky Sports 3 launches, Sky Sports is renamed Sky Sports 1, and Sky Sports Gold closes.
  • 1 September – Sky 2 and The Computer Channel launch.
  • 1 October – Granada Sky Broadcasting, in conjunction with ITV, launches. The channel line-up consists of Granada Plus, Granada Good Life, Granada Men & Motors and Granada Talk TV
  • 1 November – A joint venture between Scottish Television and BSkyB results in the launch of Sky Scottish.
• 1997
  • 31 August – Granada Talk TV and Sky 2 stop broadcasting and at around this time Sky Sports 2 becomes a stand-alone full-time service.
  • 1 November – Sky Movies and The Movie Channel are rebranded under the Sky Movies Screen banner and are now called Sky Movies Screen 1 and Sky Movies Screen 2.[11]
  • 1 December – Sky Box Office launches as a four-channel near on-demand service.
• 1998
  • 1 May – Granada Good Life is renamed Granada Breeze.
  • 31 May – Sky Scottish stops broadcasting.
  • 15 August – On the first day of the 1998–99 football season, the first edition of Soccer Saturday is broadcast. The afternoon-long football scores and results service replaces Sports Saturday.
  • 10 September – Sky Movies Screen 1 becomes Sky MovieMax, Sky Movies Screen 2 becomes Sky Premier, and Sky Movies Gold is renamed Sky Cinema.[12]
  • 1 October – Sky Digital launches, Sky Sports News launches, Sky Movies launches seven more channels and many more Sky Movies Box Office channels start broadcasting.
  • 15 November – Rival digital television service OnDigital launches. Sky had originally been a partner in the venture but was forced to pull out by the Independent Television Commission. However, some Sky channels, including Sky One, two Sky Sports channels (Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 3 – Sky Sports 2 is added later) and two Sky Movies channels, do appear on the service.
• 1999
  • 30 April – Sky Soap closes.
  • June – Sky News launches Sky News Radio.
  • 22 August – Sky Sports Xtra launches, initially primarily as an interactive service.[13]
  • 1 October – Sky MovieMax 5 is launched.[14]

2000s

• 2000
  • March – Sky News Active launches.
  • 10 April – Sky Sports News is renamed Sky Sports.com TV.
• 2001
  • The first Sky+ boxes go on sale.
  • 1 July – The Sky Sports.com TV brand is scrapped and the channel reverts to its original name of Sky Sports News.
  • 18 August – PremPlus launches.
  • 2 September – .tv stops broadcasting.
  • 27 September – Sky stops broadcasting on analogue.
• 2002
  • 7 January – Sky News content becomes available on terrestrial television for the first time in a decade when Channel 5 begins simulcasting part of its breakfast news programme Sunrise.[15]
  • 1 March – F1 Digital+ launches. It offers enhanced multi-screen coverage of Formula One on a pay-per-view basis.
  • 1 May – ITV Digital stops broadcasting.
  • 1 July – In another major rebranding of Sky Movies, the Sky Premier channels are renamed Sky Movies Premier, the Sky Moviemax channels become Sky Movies Max and the Sky Cinema channels become Sky Movies Cinema.[16]
  • 30 October – Freeview launches and Sky contributes three channels – Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Travel – to the platform.
  • 9 December – Sky One Mix launches.
  • 12 December – After just one season, F1 Digital+ closes.[17]
• 2003
  • 17 April – Sky launches three music channels – The Amp, Scuzz and Flaunt. The channels are operated on Sky's behalf by CSC Media Group channels.
  • June – The Sky Movies Premier Widescreen channel is closed and the majority of films on the remaining channels are now shown in widescreen.[18]
  • 1 November – The Sky Movies Premier and Sky Movies Max channels are brought under one banner as Sky Movies 1 through 9 and Sky Movies Cinema 1 and 2 become Sky Cinema 1 and 2.[19]
• 2004
  • 24 May – Sky News launches Sky News Ireland – a 30-minute news bulletin for viewers in the Republic of Ireland.
  • 11 June – At the Races relaunches as a stand-alone venture. Between 2000 and 2003 the channel had been on air in conjunction with Channel 4.
  • August – Football First launches. The programme allows viewers to choose the game they want to watch.
  • 1 November – ITV buys out BSkyB's stake in Granada Sky Broadcasting.
• 2005
  • 1 January – Sky News takes over the contract to provide Channel 5's news service from ITN. The first scheduled Sky produced news programme had been due to air on 3 January, but two shorter bulletins for 1 and 2 January were hastily added to provide updates following the Indian Ocean tsunami on Boxing Day 2004.[20]
  • June – Sky takes full control of Artsworld, two years after it bought a 50% stake in the channel.[21]
  • 31 October – Sky One Mix is rebranded as Sky Two and Sky Three replaces Sky Travel on Freeview.
  • 1 November – Sky Three launches.
• 2006
  • January – Sky launches its online television service Sky By Broadband, which is rebranded later in 2006 to Sky Anytime on PC.
  • 30 January – A tenth Sky Movies channel is launched and Sky Movies starts broadcasting two HD channels. Sky Movies 9 and the new Sky Movies 10 are PIN-protected, meaning that for the first time 15 rated films were able to be shown as early as 5 pm.[22]
  • Sky Sports becomes the exclusive broadcaster of all live cricket matches in the UK following the ECB awarding Sky exclusive coverage of all of England's home tests, one-day internationals and Twenty20 Internationals.
  • 22 May – Sky launches its high definition service when Sky One HD and Sky Sports 1 HD being broadcasting.
  • July – Sky Sports 2HD launches.
  • 3 November – The final edition of Sky News Ireland is broadcast.[23][24]
  • December – Chart Show Channels takes full ownership of the three music channels that it had run on Sky's behalf.
• 2007
  • 1 March –
    • The Sky basics channels stop broadcasting on Virgin Media when the two companies cannot agree a new carriage deal.[25]
    • Sky Arts launches, replacing Artsworld.
  • 27 March – Sky launches its on-demand service Sky Anytime.
  • 4 April – Sky Movies is revamped with each channel now covering a specific genre and are renamed. The new line-up is Sky Movies Premiere, Sky Movies Premiere +1, Sky Movies Comedy, Sky Movies Action & Thriller, Sky Movies Family, Sky Movies Drama, Sky Movies Classics, Sky Movies Sci-Fi & Horror, Sky Movies Modern Greats, Sky Movies Indie, Sky Movies HD1 and Sky Movies HD2.[26]
  • 6 May – PremPlus closes.
  • 7 November – Sky Travel is renamed as Sky Real Lives, Sky Travel +1 is renamed Sky Real Lives +1, Sky Travel Extra becomes Sky Real Lives 2, and Sky Travel Shop is renamed as Sky Travel.
• 2008
  • 17 March – Sky Sports 3HD launches.
  • 20 March – A HD simulcast of Sky Movies Premiere is launched.
  • 16 May – Sky Anytime on PC is rebranded as Sky Player, along with updated software to include live simulcasts of Sky News and Sky Sports.
  • 18 August – Sky Arts +1 starts broadcasting.
  • 31 August – Sky One, Sky Two and Sky Three are renamed Sky 1, Sky 2 and Sky 3 respectively.
  • October – High-definition simulcast channels of Sky Movies Action/Thriller, Sky Movies Sci-Fi/Horror, Sky Movies Drama, Sky Movies Modern Greats, Sky Movies Family and Sky Movies Comedy launch.[27]
  • 13 November – The Sky Basics channels return to Virgin Media.[28][29]
• 2009
  • 26 October – Sky Movies Indie HD launches.[30]

2010s

• 2010
  • 6 January – Sky Sports Xtra is renamed Sky Sports 4.
  • 3 April – Sky 3D launches, initially as a commercial channel. Residential customers get access to the channel on 1 October.[31][32]
  • 29 April – Sky Sports 4HD launches.[33]
  • 6 May – Sky News HD launches.
  • June – Sky Sports Radio launches.
  • 4 June – British Sky Broadcasting and Virgin Media announce that they have reached an agreement for the acquisition by Sky of Virgin Media Television.[34][35] The take-over is completed on 13 July.[36]
  • 24 June – Sky Travel closes.[37]
  • 5 July – Sky Living Loves launches.[38] The channel shows comedy and drama programmes that has recently aired on Sky Living and broadcasts each day between 3 pm and 2 am.
  • 9 August – Sky Movies Classics HD launches.[39]
  • 19 August – Sky Real Lives closes.
  • 23 August – Sky Sports News stops broadcasting on Freeview[40] and a HD version of the channel is launched.[41] On Freeview, Sky Sports News is replaced by Sky 3 +1.
  • 20 October – Sky Arts 2 launches.
• 2011
  • 1 February –
    • Sky Atlantic launches.[42][43]
    • Living is renamed Sky Living.
  • 28 February – Sky 3 is rebranded as Pick TV.
  • 6 July – Sky Anytime is merged with Sky Mobile and is rebranded as Sky Go.[44] Key changes include the ability to watch live channels in line with your Sky TV subscription at no additional cost, limited to two simultaneous devices.
  • 5 September – Sky Living Loves begins broadcasting 24 hours a day.
  • October – The final edition of Sky Magazine is published.[45]
  • 8 November – ITN confirms it has secured a five-year contract to resume production of 5 News from early 2012, meaning Sky News will cease to broadcast on the channel from the end of 2011.[46]
• 2012
  • 21 February – Sky Living Loves stops broadcasting.
  • 9 March – Sky Sports F1 launches.
  • 12 November Sky One launches a +1 channel although for licensing reasons, The Simpsons is not broadcast on the timeshift channel.[47]
• 2013
  • 28 March – Sky Movies Disney is launched, effectively replacing Disney Cinemagic.[48]
  • 7 October – Pick TV is rebranded as Pick.
• 2014
  • 12 August –
    • Sky Sports 5 launches, primarily to broadcast European football.[49]
    • Sky Sports News is rebranded Sky Sports News HQ.
  • September – Sky Sports News Radio closes.
  • 13 October – Following BSkyB's 2014 acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority 90.04% interest in Sky Deutschland in November 2014, its holding company British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changes its name to Sky plc.[50] The United Kingdom operations also changes the company name from British Sky Broadcasting Limited to Sky UK Limited, and still trades as Sky.
• 2015
  • 9 June –
    • The two Sky Arts channels merge into a single service.[51]
    • Sky 3D closes as a linear channel.[52]
    • Sky Livingit is rebranded as Real Lives.
• 2016
  • 9 February – Sky Q prepares to launch as from this date customers can order Sky Q boxes.
  • 8 July – Sky Movies is rebranded as Sky Cinema.[53][54]
  • 13 August – Sky Sports broadcasts its first event in UHD.[55]
  • 24 August – Sky Sports Mix launches. It is available to all Sky customers, and is designed to offer a sampling of content from the full range of Sky Sports networks to non-Sky Sports customers.[56][57]
• 2017
  • 4 January – Sky Cinema Box Office closes.
  • 18 July – Sky Sports is revamped with the numbered channels being replaced by sports-specific channels. These include two channels dedicated to football, a cricket channel and a golf channel. Other sports are moved to two new channels – Action and Arena – and a showcase channel called Sky Sports Main Event is launched which features simulcasts of the top events being show on Sky Sports that day.[58] Also, Sky Sports News drops the HQ label.
• 2018
  • 23 January – Fox's £11.7bn bid to take full control of Sky is provisionally blocked by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) amid concerns of plurality.[59]
  • 14 February – BT and Sky have agreed a £4.4bn three-year deal to show live Premiership football matches from 2019 to 2022, but the amount falls short of the £5.1bn deal struck in 2015.[60]
  • 27 February – US cable TV giant Comcast makes a £22.1bn bid for Sky, challenging the existing offer from 21st Century Fox.[61]
  • 6 August – Sky Living is rebranded as 'Sky Witness', bringing an end to the Living brand after 25 years.[62]
  • 26 September – 21st Century Fox announces it will sell its 39% stake in Sky UK to Comcast, ending Rupert Murdoch's three decade association with the broadcaster.[63]
• 2019
  • 1 January – Sky Sports Racing launches, replacing At The Races.[64][65]
  • 1 October – Sky Crime launches.[66] It replaces Real Lives.

2020s

• 2020
  • 27 January – Sky Comedy launches.[66]
  • 27 May –
    • Sky Documentaries and Sky Nature launch.[67][68]
    • The History Channel and History 2, which operate as a joint venture between Sky and A&E Networks, are rebranded as Sky History and Sky History 2 respectively.[69]
  • 23 July – Sky Cinema Animation launches. Sky Cinema Animation SD replaces Sky Cinema Premiere +1, while Sky Cinema Animation HD is a new channel.[70]
  • September – Sky Arts will launch on Freeview as a free-to-air service.[71][72]

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