Sky Cinema


Sky Cinema is a British subscription film service owned by Sky Group. In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and in addition Sky Cinema on demand content are available through these as well as via Now, EE TV and TalkTalk TV.
In 2016, Sky rebranded its television film channel operations under one single branding on 8 July, the channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland were rebranded from Sky Movies to Sky Cinema; on 22 September in Germany and Austria, the Sky Cinema brand was extended to the German channels in the group formerly known as Sky Film; the Italian Sky Cinema channels followed suit on 5 November by adopting the brand packages introduced in the United Kingdom and Ireland earlier.
Output includes movie premieres from Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, and Sky original films.

History

1989–1998: early years

Launched at 6 pm on 5 February 1989, Sky Movies was originally a single service as part of Sky's original four-channel package – alongside Sky News, Eurosport and Sky Channel – on the Astra 1b satellite system,. The first film shown on the channel was Project X. Before launch, Sky signed first-run deals with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures, Orion Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution Company, Inc.. One year after it began broadcasts, it became the first Sky channel to scramble its signal, using a encryption system called VideoCrypt. Anyone attempting to view it without a decoder and smart card could only see a scrambled picture.
On 2 November 1990, Sky Television merged with rival British Satellite Broadcasting, acquiring The Movie Channel. With the launch of the second SES Astra satellite was added to the Sky package on 15 April 1991 and the first film shown was 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. From the relaunch of the channel under BSkyB, this ident was made by Pacific Data Images and heavily based on NBC's movie opening used from 1987 to 1993. Similarly, Sky Movies was made available to viewers on BSB's old satellite on 8 April earlier that year replaces its music channel, The Power Station. Also in the same year, Sky Movies and The Movie Channel started broadcasting for 24 hours per day – which previously they had been on air from early afternoon until the early hours of the next morning. In addition of these slots for 6.00 pm, 8.00 pm and 10.00 pm, Sky Movies had several different film genres were used every evening such as:
At the same time, The Movie Channel started to begin its evening films at the later slots of 6.15 pm, 8.15 pm and 10.15 pm, also include showing classic and children's films during the daytime hours between early morning and late afternoons were used.
For three consecutive years in the early 1990s, Sky Movies carried several non-film premium content known as "special events" including World Wrestling Federation's annual events such as WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam and Survivor Series, various music concerts and live boxing competitions such as the first event was Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas on 11 February 1990. This was because at this time all of Sky's other channels including Sky Sports, were shown free-to-air and during this period, the service was often referred to as Sky Movies Plus. When Sky Sports became a pay channel on 1 September 1992, Sky Movies stopped showing non-movie related programming.
On 1 October 1992, The Comedy Channel was replaced by Sky Movies Gold, a service dedicated to "classic movies" from 4.00pm to midnight every day and it was added as a three-channel package, with the first film shown at 6.00pm on the new network was 1979's Rocky II. On 31 December of that year, Sky Movies and The Movie Channel stopped broadcasting via Thor satellite.
From 1 February 1993, BSkyB introduced a new system of ratings for Sky Movies, The Movie Channel and Sky Movies Gold were used at various times replacing the British Board of Film Classification certificates which lasted over four years, and remained on air until 31 October 1997:
On 1 October 1995, Sky Movies Gold starts sharing its transponder space with The Disney Channel resulting in the service's broadcasting hours changed from 10.00 pm to 6.00 am.
The two main channels were rebranded under a common brand on 1 November 1997, Sky Movies became Sky Movies Screen 1 and The Movie Channel became Sky Movies Screen 2, as well as Sky Box Office launches a four-channel near on-demand service on 1 December of that year, also carried by Cable & Wireless chooses not to use the service instead opting for Front Row. Following the major rebrand once again on 10 September 1998, as Sky Movies Screen 1 became Sky MovieMax, Sky Movies Screen 2 became Sky Premier and Sky Movies Gold was renamed Sky Cinema.

1998–2007: digital era

The launch of Sky Digital from the new Astra 28.2°E satellite position on 1 October 1998 was accompanied by a major expansion of channels. Sky Premier and Sky MovieMax both added three multiplex channels each, Sky Cinema launched Sky Cinema 2, and additionally, Sky Premier Widescreen – at the time was the only channel devoted to showing widescreen films were all launched exclusively on digital satellite. Also on the same year, Sky MovieMax and Sky Premier launched on ITV Digital terrestrial platform. On 1 October 1999, Sky MovieMax 5 was launched.
From 1 July 2002, as the Sky Movies channels saw yet another rebranding exercise, the Sky Premier channels were renamed Sky Movies Premier, the Sky MovieMax channels became Sky Movies Max and the Sky Cinema channels became Sky Movies Cinema. Eventually in June 2003, Sky listened to demands for more widescreen films, the service was closed and the majority of films on the remaining channels were actually shown in widescreen. On 1 November 2003, the Sky Movies Premier and Sky Movies Max channels were all brought under one banner as simply Sky Movies 1 to 9. At the same time, Sky Movies Cinema 1 and 2 became Sky Cinema 1 and 2.
Sky Movies along with numerous other channels became available to watch via Sky Mobile TV in 2005, in partnership with Vodafone. From 30 January 2006, Sky Movies 9 and the new Sky Movies 10 started broadcasting from 5.00pm to 3.00am. They were PIN-protected, meaning that for the first time when films with a 15 certificate were able to be shown as early as 5.00pm. With the launch of Sky HD, the two channels were also available in a high-definition format.

2007–2016: Sky Movies gets categorised

Sky Movies was overhauled on 4 April 2007, when the different channels became dedicated to different genres, but three of the HD channels have launched already before the other:
  • Premiere
  • Premiere +1
  • Comedy
  • Action & Thriller
  • Family
  • Drama
  • Sci Fi & Horror
  • Classics
  • Modern Greats
  • Indie
  • HD1/SD1
  • HD2/SD2
Sky later made Sky Movies HD1 and HD2 available to subscribers without HDTV equipment through two channels simulcasting the same content in SDTV format, the channels were known as Sky Movies SD1 and SD2. These channels were renamed Sky Movies Screen 1 and Screen 2 in February 2008, and the HDTV channels were renamed Sky Movies Screen 1 HD and Screen 2 HD accordingly. On 20 March 2008, an additional high-definition film channel called Sky Movies Premiere HD, which is a simulcast version of the current Sky Movies Premiere channel, was added after many requests for the channel from Sky HD subscribers.
Sky also announced that in October 2008, they would launch six new high-definition simulcast channels called Sky Movies Action/Thriller HD, Sky Movies Sci-Fi/Horror HD, Sky Movies Drama HD, Sky Movies Modern Greats HD, Sky Movies Family HD and Sky Movies Comedy HD. This means that almost all Sky Movies channels are broadcast in both standard- and high-definition except for Sky Movies Premiere +1, Sky Movies Classics and Sky Movies Indie which remained standard-definition only until Sky Movies Indie HD launched on 26 October 2009. Sky Movies were rebranded as the part of the various Sky channels on 1 January 2010.
On 26 March 2010, some Sky Movies channels were renamed, the new Sky Movies Showcase that replaces Sky Movies Screen 1 were devoted to box sets, collections and seasons. Sky Movies also reshuffled its bouquet of ten channels to achieve greater "clarity" for subscribers. The changes included Sky Movies Action & Thriller becoming Sky Movies Action & Adventure, Sky Movies Drama becoming Sky Movies Drama & Romance and Sky Movies Screen 2 becoming Sky Movies Crime & Thriller. The Sky Movies HD channels launched on the Virgin Media platform on 2 August 2010.
Sky Movies Classics HD launched on 9 August 2010 was exclusively on Sky, and the channel was also added to Virgin Media on 4 October 2011. Smallworld Cable added the Sky Movies HD channels to their line-up in the first quarter of 2012, followed by Virgin Media Ireland on 16 August 2012.
On 28 March 2013, Sky Movies Disney was launched that effectively replaces Disney Cinemagic, as part of a multi-year film output deal between Sky and The Walt Disney Company. This marks the first time that Disney has been involved in a co-branded linear film channel anywhere in the world, included new Disney films are available on Sky Movies Disney around six months after they have ended their cinema run. To facilitate the channel, Sky Movies Classics has ceased broadcasting, when Sky Movies Modern Greats was rebranded as Sky Movies Greats and Sky Movies Indie became Sky Movies Select, whether the content of the three former brands was merged into Select and Greats.