Sky One
Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group. Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non-terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989, it became Sky One and broadcast exclusively in the United Kingdom and Ireland as British Sky Broadcasting's flagship channel. It existed until 1 September 2021, when it closed down as part of a restructuring with its EPG position taken by Sky Showcase and much of its content library moved to Sky Max.
Sky One included some very popular original programmes—such as An Idiot Abroad, Brainiac: Science Abuse, The Russell Howard Hour, Battlestar Galactica—and many imported from North America, including 24, The X-Files, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Bones, Caprica, Fringe, Modern Family, Glee, House, Lie to Me, Lost, Prison Break, The Simpsons, Stargate, The Last Ship, Touch, About a Boy, The Middle, Manifest, You, Me and the Apocalypse and The Blacklist. Other American imports included CBS military/action dramas, science-fiction and Arrowverse superhero shows and The Blacklist.
History
1982–1984: Satellite Television
Sky One started on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television Limited, and was Europe's first ever cable and satellite channel, originally broadcasting from the Orbital Test Satellite aimed at cable operators all over the continent. At first, the station struggled financially due to disappointing ratings in the countries in which it was officially available, which in turn led to insufficient advertising revenue and increasing difficulty in covering the high transmission costs. Initially, the channel's own programming and continuity was played out from the Molinare studios at Fouberts Place in the West End of London.On 27 June 1983, the shareholders of Satellite Television agreed a £5 million offer to give News International 65% of the company. With the successful launch of the Intelsat V satellite in October 1983 Rupert Murdoch was able to extend the broadcast hours and the number of countries able to receive the signal.
1984–1989: Sky Channel
On 16 January 1984, Satellite Television Limited was renamed Sky Channel and finally became available in the UK to Swindon Cable's 10,000 subscribers. It began incorporating a large number of American imports in its schedules and also increased the quantity of home-grown productions, including a number of new music shows with Gary Davies, Tony Blackburn, Linda de Mol, Pat Sharp, David "Kid" Jensen, and Anthea Turner presenting programmes such as Euro Top 40, and UK Top 50 Chart. New children's programmes like Fun Factory and The DJ Kat Show, many of which came not only from Sky's own studios in London, but also included programmes produced in the Netherlands by John de Mol's production company.On 8 June 1988, Murdoch announced his plans to expand Sky's four channels, thus creating the Sky Television Network. On 5 February 1989, the service was launched as prime-time broadcasts to European cable operators ended and were replaced by Eurosport, a joint venture between Sky and the European Broadcasting Union aimed at a pan-European audience.
A new raft of shows were created for the channel, including the daily talent show Sky Star Search; game shows ; weekly documentary series Frank Bough's World; daily late night talk show Jameson Tonight; agony aunt advice show A Problem Shared; and Sky by Day, Sky TV's variation on ITV's more popular This Morning, hosted by former BBC Radio 1 DJ Tony Blackburn and former Magpie presenter Jenny Hanley, as the show aired a mix of entertainment, gossip and fashion.
The "New Sky Channel", as it was dubbed in on-air promotion prior to its 5 February 1989 launch, continued to broadcast its signature children's programmes, and also expanded its daytime programming with six back-to-back soaps while reducing music programming to only one or two hours per day. Classic sitcoms and more recent comedies as well as put on the schedule along with dramas were included. Sky Channel also aired classic movies, made-for-TV movies and miniseries. Dolly Parton's recent variety show Dolly, popular Australian science and technology show Beyond 2000, the Nescafé UK Top 50 chart show, Sunday morning religious programme Hour of Power, hour-long weekend edition of celebrity news magazine Entertainment Tonight and telecasts of World Wrestling Federation rounded out Sky Channel's weekend schedule. Special event programming included late night live telecasts of boxing matches and various music concerts.
1989–2021: Sky One
On 31 July 1989, the channel was renamed Sky One and closed in most European countries, broadcasting only to the British Isles. During September of that year, Sky One began to air more recent programming as an early success being Moonlighting, ALF and Wiseguy, also aired the British television premiere of a new drama series 21 Jump Street. Back-to-back soaps as well as action shows were also added to its prime time schedule. A number of Australian dramas, as well as the soap operas were aired. Some Australian children's programmes, such as Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Zoo Family also aired on Sky One. In 1990 and early 1991, Sky One broadcast numerous live cricket telecasts during which it pre-empted its regularly scheduled programming.Following the merger with British Satellite Broadcasting's Galaxy on 2 November 1990, Sky One also picked up new sitcoms, dramas, reruns of classic sitcoms, a new animated series Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles was added to children's programmes, and daily dating game show Love at First Sight was presented by Helen Brumby and Bruno Brookes. Following the daily repeats of Star Trek and Lost in Space, Sky One picked up a number of science-fiction shows which became a crucial part of its evening line-up such as the UK premiere of Alien Nation, also added reruns of V and Battlestar Galactica in 1991. After the 1992 airing of The Flash, Sky One also picked up Star Trek: The Next Generation which had previously aired on BBC2 began a long twice per day run of the franchise in a late afternoon and a late evening timeslot on Mondays to Fridays.
A staple of Sky One prime time schedule in its early years were glossy American miniseries such as Roots, Shōgun, Masada, The Thorn Birds, North and South and Lonesome Dove, which aired mostly in two-hour installments each week Sundays to Tuesdays. As the format was beginning to fade in the United States, the miniseries were reduced to two nights in late 1992 and then rescheduled to Tuesdays and Wednesdays in early 1994 under its new title called Midweek Drama, before being dropped altogether shortly after that and reappearing only as special event programming. In 1993, Sky One finally replaced its long-running Sunday night drama 21 Jump Street with exclusive premiere of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles and later Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Sunday night timeslot was ultimately given to new episodes of the hit teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210 which was later paired off with its spin-off Melrose Place. After many years in the clear on 1 September of that year, Sky One was encrypted as part of the new Sky Multichannels subscription package, and could no longer be viewed outside Britain and Ireland without exporting a box, or receiving it over cable.
The start of 1995 saw Sky One begin 24-hour broadcasting and initially the overnight hours were filled by music videos. However by the end of the decade, overnight programming consisted of the same range of programmes broadcast at all other times of the day.
On 1 October 1998, Sky One's digital feed launched with Sky Digital. Sky One was one of the four last remaining channels on the analogue platform when it was switched off at midnight on 27 September 2001. In 2000, a dedicated feed of Sky One for Ireland was launched for most of this Irish feed's existence, the only difference between it and the United Kingdom feed has been differing commercials and programme promotions. In June 2003, the channel started broadcasting in 16:9 widescreen. However, all television commercials were broadcast in 4:3 until 21 November 2005, because they were played off the same servers for all Sky channels, many of which were not broadcast in widescreen.
On 25 August 2012, Stuart Murphy, director of Sky entertainment channels, announced that a one-hour timeshift of Sky One and Sky Atlantic will due to start in the autumn, with the former launching on 12 November of that year. For New Year's Day 2014, Sky One was temporarily renamed Sky Onesie aiming "to encourage viewers to snuggle up in front of the television wearing onesies, in a bid to recover from the previous night's celebrations". In 2017, Sky One began broadcasting some sports coverage. This included a partial simulcast of Soccer Saturday, highlights of, and occasional live coverage of, Formula One motor racing and the occasional live football match. The summer of 2019 saw Sky One show highlights of the 2019 Cricket World Cup and live coverage of England's matches in the 2019 Netball World Cup.
2004 programme relaunch
Sky One's programme lineup was relaunched at the start of 2004, with Sky television head Dawn Airey stating the channel had become too associated with The Simpsons, science fiction shows such as Star Trek: Enterprise, Andromeda and Stargate SG-1 and raunchy factual entertainment shows such as the LWT-produced ''Ibiza Uncovered.The channel was also struggling to acquire new American series, as FTA broadcasters had become familiar with Sky's tricks to buy the majority of American programming, with Channel 4 picking up the likes of The Sopranos and Without a Trace on an exclusive basis and Five picking up the likes of The Shield and the CSI franchise, which was at the peak of its popularity during this period.
Other competitors in the pay TV field also latched on to this, with LivingTV nabbing the likes of Will & Grace, Ally McBeal, Joan of Arcadia, Charmed, and later the likes of Boston Legal and Grey's Anatomy, and Hallmark Channel, which acquired Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Newly appointed controller of Sky One, Sara Ramsden, struck a deal with Warner Bros. International Television Distribution to acquire five new US dramas: mainly the medical drama Nip/Tuck and the CBS police procedural drama Cold Case. The channel also poached the popular espionage drama 24 after finding success on BBC Two for its first two seasons. Other new shows acquired by Sky One for 2004 included Las Vegas and as part of the WB deal, Tarzan and Jane, the unproduced Fearless and Skin''.