Sky Arts

CHANNEL: Sky Arts

COUNTRY: U.K.

LAUNCH DATE: The service was launched under the name of Artsworld in 2000 by Sir Jeremy Isaacs and a group of partners. In 2003, BSkyB bought a 50-percent stake in the channel and then took full control in 2005. The channel’s name was changed to Sky Arts on March 1, 2007, and on October 20, 2008, the channel split into two services, with Sky Arts 1 offering more contemporary arts programming and Sky Arts 2 focusing on more classical forms, including opera, symphony and ballet.

OWNERSHIP: British Sky Broadcasting

DISTRIBUTION: More than 9 million homes.

DESCRIPTION: Sky Art’s mission is to offer as broad a range of high-quality arts to as many Sky customers as possible. That includes everything from opera, ballet and classical music to more mainstream and accessible art forms, from The Rolling Stones and classic rock to programs about the Museum of Modern Art in New York or the Tate in London, to art films and documentaries.

SENIOR MANAGEMENT:
Managing Director, Entertainment, Sky: Sophie Turner-Laing
Channel Director, Sky Arts: John Cassy

PROGRAMMING STRATEGY: In the last six months, Sky Arts has been revamped. “This time last year we had one channel and a simulcast of it, and that one channel showed all forms of the arts,” explains John Cassy, the channel director for Sky Arts. “So the challenge for us was the fact that our schedule would go from Wagner to The Rolling Stones to Picasso to a documentary. It wasn’t the easiest thing to schedule. We had an opportunity to buy out one of our rivals and relaunch it as a separate channel, [so we divided the service into] all contemporary arts on one channel and all classic on the other.”

Currently Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2 each air 18 hours a day and together they offer 36 hours of arts programming every day of the week.

“On Sky Arts 1, which is the more contemporary channel, every night at 9 p.m. we have a strand called Center Stage, which is the rock strand—The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimmy Hendricks, Elvis or Johnny Cash. We have documentaries built around that. We also have films and factual series,” explains Cassy.

“Sky Arts 2 has the more traditional art forms, so every night at 8 p.m. you will be able to see a full-length performance in prime time, without adverts interrupting it—whether that is opera from the Met in New York or from Glyndebourne in the U.K. It can be the Berlin Philharmonic. It’s the best of the arts from around the world. And for the people who are interested in that sort of content, it’s some of the best television they can watch anywhere. They feel very passionately about it and we recognize that and we try to serve them as best as we possibly can. And that is one of the privileges we have as a pay-TV business, we are there completely to serve our customers. They find what we do extremely valuable.”

As Cassy explains, about 80 percent of the Sky Arts schedule consists of acquired programming and about 40 percent of those imports are of non-U.K. origin.

“We buy from all over the world,” he says. “We buy a lot from the States, a lot from Continental Europe, particularly around the big orchestras and the big opera houses—the Berlin Philharmonic is probably the best orchestra in the world right now, so we buy a lot from Germany. La Scala in Italy is one of the most enduring opera houses anywhere, so we buy from them.”

In a bad economy, with people carefully watching their discretionary spending, Sky Arts offers very good value to opera lovers—this week announcing a new partnership with the Glyndebourne Festival.

“That is one of our other major selling points,” continues Cassy. “The cost of going to watch the Met in New York if you are based in Western England is huge, so we bring the world of the arts into people’s living rooms. That is a compelling proposition. And with the recession now, it is becoming even more valuable. We’d like to think we have a mixture of programming that is going to appeal to people whatever the economic environment is. But certainly in the current downturn, it makes what we offer all the more compelling.”

WHAT’S NEW: Program highlights for the next few months reveal an eclectic offering. This month, Bridge: Celebrity Grand Slam sees eight household names, ranging from lifelong players down to complete novices, compete in a bridge tournament to win a cash prize for the charity of their choice. There will also be Classic Albums, a series of 25 programs charting how some of the most iconic albums in rock music history were made, from Electric Ladyland to Dark Side of The Moon.

In May, Sky Arts will be broadcasting live from the Hay Festival, one of the leading literary festivals in the world. “When Bill Clinton attended a few years ago he called it, ‘Woodstock for the mind’,” says Cassy. During Hay, Sky Arts will record ten episodes of The Book Show, (the U.K.’s only TV program dedicated to books) and six of What the Dickens, a cultural quiz hosted by Sandi Toksvig.

Also in May will be the premiere of In Search of Beethoven, a new film from director Phil Grabsky. Following the acclaimed In Search of Mozart, this film traces Beethoven’s oeuvre by speaking to various orchestras, musicians and conductors around the world.

In July, Sky Arts is the official broadcast partner for Antony Gormley’s One & Other, part of Sky Arts sponsorship of Artichoke, the arts producers. The famous artist Antony Gormley has won the bid to fill the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. For 100 days starting on July 6, Gormley has control of the plinth, and there will be a different person on it every hour, for 24 hours a day, for 100 days.

“You can do whatever you want on there, as long as it’s legal, and we’ll be broadcasting that online for 24 hours a day for 100 days, and we’ll also do a weekly magazine show of highlights from the plinth,” explains Cassy. “The reason that it’s attractive to us is that it’s a different take on what art is. Some people will go out there and do amazing performances, forms of physical protest, or take their clothes off, or go to sleep, or whatever they may do, and we won’t know what’s going to happen. And I think it can be quite fascinating television.”

Sky Arts’ website offers program information and extra clips. “Generally our audience is slightly older than the average TV audience, by that I mean we are not chasing the 18- to 34-year-olds," explains Cassy. “Half our audience is 45-plus, they are also all ABC 1—all very literate, they are mostly university educated and they are information hungry. So our website’s primary purpose is to support the programming on air because people will watch a documentary and will want to know more about it, so they go online and get more information. We get lots of questions about aspects of the programming we show, so the website is a very valuable resource to direct people to find out more.”

WEBSITE:

skyarts.co.uk