Sky Max

Sky Max is British entertainment television network owned by Sky. The channel broadcasts series related to drama and comedy, game-shows and reality shows programmings.

History[]

Sky One started on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television and was Europe's first ever cable and satellite channel, originally broadcasting from the Orbital Test Satellite aimed at cable operators all over the continent. At first the station struggled financially, due to disappointing ratings in the countries in which it was officially available, which in turn led to insufficient advertising revenue and increasing difficulty in covering the high transmission costs.

On 27 June 1983, the shareholders of Satellite Television agreed a £5 million offer to give News International 65% of the company. Murdoch extended the broadcast hours and the number of countries the station broadcast to including the United Kingdom. On 16 January 1984 the channel was renamed Sky Channel.

Sky Channel incorporated a large number of American imports in its schedules, while also increased the quantity produced of home grown programmes, including a number of new music programmes with Gary Davies, Tony Blackburn, Linda de Mol, Pat Sharp, David "Kid" Jensen, and Anthea Turner presenting programmes such as Euro Top 40, and UK Top 50 Chart. New children's programmes like Fun Factory and The DJ Kat Show, many of which came not only from Sky's own studios in London (having already abandoned the Molinare facilities by then), but also included programmes produced in the Netherlands by John de Mol's production company.

On 8 June 1988, Murdoch announced his plans to expand Sky's service to four channels, thus creating the Sky Television network. On 5 February 1989, the Sky Television Network (Sky Channel, Sky News, Sky Movies and Eurosport) was launched, At the same time, prime-time broadcasts to European cable operators ended, being replaced by Eurosport, a joint venture between Sky and the European Broadcasting Union, and aimed at a pan-European audience (like Sky Channel had been up to that point). Initially, a new raft of shows were created, for the channel including Jameson Tonight, Sale of the Century (based more off the 80s American version), The Price Is Right, Frank Bough's World and Sky By Day, Sky TV's variation on ITV's more popular This Morning, hosted by former BBC Radio 1 DJ Tony Blackburn (who had moved to commercial radio by then) and former Magpie presenter Jenny Hanley. The show had a mix of entertainment, gossip, fashion, etc. The Channel continued with the same children's programmes, soaps, and US action series, WWF Wrestling. On 31 July 1989, the channel was renamed Sky One and closed in most European countries, broadcasting to only the United Kingdom and Ireland.

On 1990, Sky One began to acquire more recent programming, an early success being Moonlighting, which the BBC had previously screened but not repeated. Sky One also picked new programming such as The Simpsons, 21 Jump Street and the last series of Falcon Crest, and following its merger with BSB's Galaxy Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

After many years in the clear, on 1 September 1993, Sky One was encrypted as part of the new Sky Multichannels subscription package, and could no longer be viewed outside Britain and Ireland without exporting a box, or receiving it over cable (although it had already been encrypted for a while since its original launch and first went in the clear in around 1987). The channel also commissioned a number of home grown programmes while also expanding its Australian television series to include E Street, Chances and Paradise Beach. It continued to be the most-watched satellite channel in the UK and Ireland, a position it held for most of the 1990s, with many first-run US imports such as The Simpsons (which traditionally has been the channel's main selling-point, remaining a satellite exclusive until it finally made its terrestrial television appearance on BBC2 in 1996), Friends, Frasier, Seinfeld, ER and The X-Files, as well as some older programmes such as the various Star Trek series, Hill Street Blues, M*A*S*H*, and Lucille Ball's various comedy series.

The success of the channel led to the launch on 1 September 1996 of a companion channel, Sky2; however, it was not a success and was closed down on 31 August 1997, one day short of a year after it launched. In contrast to the Sky Two that was later relaunched, this channel featured even more first-run programmes, and it broadcast only at night, between 19:00 and 6:00.

In 2000, a dedicated feed of Sky One for Ireland was launched. For most of this Irish feed's existence, the only difference between it and the United Kingdom feed has been differing commercials and programme promotions. In June 2003, the channel started broadcasting in 16:9 widescreen. However, all TV commercials were broadcast in 4:3 until November 2005, because they were played off the same servers for all Sky channels, many of which were not broadcast in widescreen.

On 21 September 2004, Sky One Mix was subsequently renamed Sky Mix. On 31 October 2005, Sky Mix was renamed as Sky Two with the launch of a second sister channel Sky Three.

On Thursday 1st March 2007 Sky One Along With Sky Two (Ex NTL Only) Sky Travel (Ex NTL Only) Sky Travel Extra (Ex NTL Only) Sky Sports News And Sky News Were Removed From Virgin Media Due To The Agreement With The 2 Companies, Eventually Virgin Had Talks With Sky Bringing Back The Basic Channels Which Happened On Thursday 13th November 2008 Where Sky1 Sky2 Sky3 (NEW) Sky Real Lives Sky Real Lives 2 Sky Arts 1 (NEW) Sky Arts 2 (NEW) Sky Sports News And Sky News Were Available On The Platform.

On Wednesday 27th June 2007 Sky And Tiscali Began Doing A Deal To Bring Sky Basic Channels Available To Tiscali TV Which Happened On Tuesday 28th August 2007, The Channels On Tiscali Are Sky One Sky Two Sky Three Sky Arts Sky News And Sky Sports News.

On 25 August 2012, it was announced by Stuart Murphy, director of Sky entertainment channels, that a one-hour timeshift of Sky One and Sky Atlantic would launch in the Autumn of 2012, with the former launching on 12 November 2012. The time shift channel offers most of Sky One's programming, however The Simpsons is not broadcast because BSkyB is prohibited from doing so under the current terms of their licensing agreement with 20th Century Fox Television Distribution. An on-screen message instead appears redirecting viewers to Sky One. As of 2017, The Simpsons is available to watch on the timeshifted channel.

For New Year's Day 2014, Sky One was temporarily renamed to Sky Onesie "to encourage viewers to snuggle up in front of the television wearing onesies, in a bid to recover from the previous night's celebrations".

On 27 July 2021, Sky's channel Sky One will be renamed as Sky Max will be launching on 1st September.