Previous Life
| Sky Arts | |
|---|---|
| The 1990s Sky Arts logo | |
| Launched | 2 December 1990 |
| Closed | 31 December 1992 |
| Owned by | British Sky Broadcasting |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| Analogue | Marcopolo, 11.785 |
Originally, Sky Arts was planned as a full channel on the Astra 1A satellite at the beginning of the Sky Television service back in 1989. Promotional material broadcast during the launch indicated the channel would appear later that year along with Disney Channel. Neither channel launched at the time, Disney due to disputes with Sky, whilst arts programming (such as an early broadcast of the opera 'Carmen') was instead broadcast on Sky One.
Following the merger of British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) and Sky Television plc to form British Sky Broadcasting in 1990, BSkyB replaced the BSB lifestyle channel Now with Sky Television's news channel Sky News. However, contracts were still in place for some shows intended for the Now channel to be shown by BSkyB. BSkyB solved this by occasionally opting out of the regular Sky News service during weekends on the Marcopolo satellite (which was owned by BSB prior to the merger and which carried Now) and showing the programmes as part of a weekend service entitled 'Sky Arts'. The service was only seen by former BSB viewers, since Sky Arts did not interrupt Sky News on the existing Astra satellite service.
After all outstanding programmes had been broadcast, the full Sky News service was broadcast on both Marcopolo and Astra and Sky Arts ceased to broadcast. The Sky Arts name returned in 2007, after a 15-year break in transmission – one of the longest such breaks in British television history.
Read more about this topic: Sky Arts
Famous quotes containing the words previous and/or life:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)