Sky One
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- This article is about the British and Irish TV channel. For the New Zealand TV channel, see SKY 1
Sky One is one of British Sky Broadcasting's entertainment channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
Origins
The channel grew out of the UK's first satellite TV channel, named Satellite Television Limited, launched independently in 1978 and distributed on a small number of British and European cable television systems. In 1982 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.See also: Origins
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. On September 1 1993 Sky One was encrypted as part of the Sky subscription package, and could no longer be viewed outside the UK and Ireland without 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. Other Hit Premiere Screenings have included Futurama, Family Guy, The PJs, Dilbert and Malcolm in the Middle. Sky also acquired rights to premiere screenings of the Star Trek franchise, beginning with Season 4 of , and also premiered The X-Files in Britain along with episodes of the ever popular Stargate SG-1 . More recently it has acquired seasons 3, 4 and 5 of 24, as well as Stargate Atlantis, Nip/Tuck, Las Vegas, Battlestar Galactica, Rescue Me and the western drama Deadwood has been added to the line-up.Home grown programmes
In recent years Sky One has started commissioning UK-made programming such as Dream Team, a drama series based on a fictional football team; 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. Hex another Sci-fi show has proved popular, but was axed in April 2006. Sky also co-produces The 4400 sci-fi TV show and co-financed the first season of Battlestar Galactica. It also screens many "reality" shows such as Cruise with Stelios, Road Wars and Ibiza Uncovered. It also recently has received success with entertainment science shows ' and spin-off, '. Less successful shows include Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show.Recent history
A companion channel, Sky 2, 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 and then Sky Two in October 2005) was launched as a "catch-up" channel, screening repeats of key Sky One programmes later in the same week. A second sister channel, Sky Three, launched on 31st October 2005.In 2000, a dedicated feed of Sky One for the Republic of Ireland was launched. For most of this Irish feed's existence, the only difference between it and the UK feed has been differing commercials and programme promotions. However, from 9 January 2006, Sky One Ireland has simulcast the 18:30 bulletin of Sky News Ireland in place of the programme shown on the UK feed.
Former BBC Radio 1 and current XFM DJ Claire Sturgess has been the "voice" of Sky One since 1998, and the sole announer 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 21 September 2004, Sky One relaunched again with another new logo and on-air presentation package. Some have commented that this logo appears to read "SKY Onc" and not Sky One, and as a result, it has been referred to as Sky Onc by a number of media websites, not as typo but as a joke. (Likewise for its sister channels, "Sky Tuo" and "Sky Thrcc".)
The channel started broadcasting widescreen programmes in their original format in June 2003, although all trailers and commercials were in 4:3 due to the fact that they were played off the same servers for all SKY channels, many of which are not yet in widescreen. However, these switched to 16:9 too in November 2005.
Censorship
Sky is often criticised for imposing more censorship than people feel is necessary on its programming. Recent examples include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the most notable is arguably the broadcaster's treatment of The Simpsons, which would frequently be edited for the tamest of sexual and drug references, as well as swear words ("crap" was even routinely removed at one point). This editing style was also imposed on Family Guy when it premiered in the United Kingdom and was so excessive that many thought the programme was no longer enjoyable, as that particular show features a large amount of racy and politically incorrect jokes.Many episodes of The Simpsons that were edited by Sky were eventually shown uncut on BBC Two. As of February 2nd, 2000, Sky relaxed their policies and restored many lines that had been previously removed (sometimes accompanied by a noticeable jump in audio quality, as the lines were spliced back in).
Logos and Idents
See also
External links
- [Official website]
- [Sky Channel & Sky One] from the [TV Ark]
- [Sky TV Launch] from the [TV Ark]
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