Sky Cinema


Sky Cinema is a group of British pay television film channels owned by Sky, a division of Comcast. In the UK, 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 TV, BT TV and TalkTalk TV.
In 2016, Sky rebranded its television film channel operations under one single Sky Cinema branding: on 8 July 2016, the channels in the UK 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 UK and Ireland earlier.

History

1989–1998: Early years

Sky Movies was originally a single film channel offered as part of Sky's original four-channel package on the Astra 1A satellite on 5 February 1989, the first film shown on the channel was 1987's Dirty Dancing, starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. Prior to its launch, Sky Movies signed first-run deals with 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Domestic Pay TV, Cable and Network Features, Columbia Pictures Entertainment, Orion Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution Co.
After one year of broadcasting free-to-air, on 5 February 1990, it became the first Sky channel to scramble its signal, using a card-encryption system called VideoCrypt which rendered the picture totally obscured to anyone attempting to view it without a decoder and smart card.
When Sky merged with rival British Satellite Broadcasting on 2 November 1990, it acquired BSB's The Movie Channel. With the launch of the second Astra satellite on 15 April 1991, becoming part of the Sky package, and the first film shown was 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Similarly, Sky Movies was made available to viewers on BSB's old satellite on 8 April 1991, replacing the music channel The Power Station. From the re-launch of the channel under BSkyB, The Movie Channel's ident was made by Pacific Data Images and heavily based on NBC's film opening used from 1987 to 1993.
During 1991, Sky Movies and The Movie Channel started broadcasting for 24 hours per day, in addition of these times for 6.00pm, 8.00pm and 10.00pm, Sky Movies had several different film genre slots were used each evening such as:
Most eventually, The Movie Channel started at later times for 6.15pm, 8.15pm and 10.15pm in the evenings, as well as begin showing classic films and also include children's films at 4.00pm during the daytime.
For a time in the early 1990s, the channel carried various non-film premium content such as live boxing, music concerts and World Wrestling Federation's special events such as UK Rampage and WrestleMania. 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 channel was often referred to as Sky Movies Plus. When Sky Sports first 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 "classic movies" service from 4.00pm to midnight every day, and it was added as a three-channel Sky Movies package. Rocky was the first film is shown on the network.
From 1 February 1993, British Sky Broadcasting introduces a new system of film ratings often used for various times in different colours, replacing the British Board of Film Classification certificates, and remained on air until 31 October 1997:
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.

1998–2003: Digital era

After a rebrand on 10 September 1998, Sky Movies Screen 1 became Sky MovieMax, Sky Movies Screen 2 became Sky Premier, and Sky Movies Gold was renamed Sky Cinema.
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, the only channel devoted to showing widescreen films - all launched exclusively on digital satellite. On 15 November 1998, Sky MovieMax and Sky Premier launched on the ONdigital terrestrial platform. On 1 October 1999, Sky MovieMax 5 was launched.
1 July 2002 saw yet another re-branding exercise, while 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 channel was closed and the majority of films on the remaining channels were actually shown in widescreen.

2003–2007: Rebrand

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 pm to 3 am. They were PIN-protected, meaning that for the first time 15 rated films were able to be shown as early as 5 pm. With the launch of Sky HD, the two channels were also available in a high definition format.

2007–2016: Sky Movies goes categorised

From 4 April 2007, Sky Movies channels were revamped with each channel covering a different genre:
Three of the HD channels have launched already before the other.
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 high definition 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 Sky channels rebranding on 1 January 2010.
On 26 March 2010, some Sky Movies channels were renamed, the new Sky Movies Showcase channel replaced Sky Movies Screen 1, carrying 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, exclusively on Sky. The channel was 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 UPC Ireland on 16 August 2012.
On 28 March 2013, Sky Movies Disney was launched, effectively replacing Disney Cinemagic, as part of a multi-year film output deal between Sky and The Walt Disney Company. Sky Movies Disney marked the first time that Disney has been involved in a co-branded linear films channel anywhere in the world. 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 ceased broadcasting, while Sky Movies Modern Greats was rebranded as Sky Movies Greats and Sky Movies Indie became Sky Movies Select. The content of the three former brands was merged into Select and Greats.

2016–present: Rebrand to Sky Cinema and 4K UHD

On 15 June 2016, Sky announced that Sky Movies would rebrand as Sky Cinema on 8 July. This change aligns the service's naming with those of Sky's film services in other regions, in consort with Sky plc's takeover of Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. To compete with subscription video-on-demand services, Sky announced that the re-branded service would premiere a new film each day, and that it would expand the service's on-demand library. Sky also announced plans to launch a 4K ultra-high-definition feed later in the year. 4K films became available on 13 August 2016 for Sky Q customers with a 2TB box and Sky Cinema and multi-screen packs. 70 were available by the end of 2016.
In January 2018, Sky announced a partnership with film distributor Altitude Film Distribution, with the launch of Sky Cinema Original Films, this new brand would distribute films for Sky Cinema's on-demand service, as-well as release them into cinemas. The first film under the new banner was the UK release of the animated film Monster Family. Other films like The Hurricane Heist, Anon, Final Score and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile have also been released.
In June of 2020, Sky added a content warning to several older films stating that they "have outdated attitudes, language, and cultural depictions which may cause offence today."
On 23 July 2020, Sky launched a twelfth Sky Cinema channel, Sky Cinema Animation, replacing Sky Cinema Premiere +1 on Sky and Virgin Media UK. Sky Cinema Premiere +1 will continue to air on Virgin Media Ireland.

Channels

Sky regularly gives one, two or three of their Sky Cinema channels a temporary rebrand to air different kinds of seasonal or promotional programming. As of July 2020, the current Sky Cinema channels are:

Original productions

Sky Cinema has a dedicated production team that produces over 100 hours of original film-related programming each year – including Sky Cinema News, and UK/US Box Office Top Tens. In addition, Sky's close relationships with the film studios means it regularly gets exclusive access on-set and to talent for one-off 'making-ofs', talent-based programming etc.
In 1998, Elisabeth Murdoch advocated Sky setting up a film funding and production unit. The result was Sky Pictures, which existed in order to invest in both low-budget and mainstream British films. However, following a lack of success and her decision to leave Sky and set up her own production company, Shine, the unit was scaled back and closed in 2001.