Sky Entertainment was a television channel owned by

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

which was broadcast to the Scandinavian countries, lasting about 18 months. The channel was the result of an agreement between Telenor CTV and

made in March 1997, which meant Telenor would be able to broadcast two channels produced by BSkyB to their subscribers in Scandinavia. In September 2022, Sky re-entered the Scandinavian market with the introduction of

SkyShowtime Showtime is an American pay television, premium television television network, network owned by Paramount Media Networks, and is the flagship property of the namesake parent company, Showtime Networks, a part of Paramount Media Networks. Showtime ...

History

Pre-launch

On December 13, 1995, British satellite TV provider

and major

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

region franchisee

Granada Television ITV Granada, formerly known as Granada Television, is the ITV franchisee for the North West of England and Isle of Man. From 1956 to 1968 it broadcast to both the north west and Yorkshire but only on weekdays as ABC Weekend Television was it ...

announced its new joint-venture entitled as

Granada Sky Broadcasting ITV Digital Channels Limited (formerly known as Granada Sky Broadcasting) is a wholly owned subsidiary of British broadcaster ITV plc. It manages all of the company's television channels with the exception of ITV, which is part of the entir ...

, its channels will made use of Granada's programming library combined with Sky's assistance in technical, managing, marketing and financial situations, a total of eight new channels had been planned and to be launched on the

Sky Multichannels Sky Multichannels was a package of analogue television services offered by BSkyB on the Astra satellites at 19.2° east from 1 September 1993 to 27 September 2001, which started off with 15 channels before expanding to over 40. History Overv ...

pay-TV package.

Early years

Following the successful launch of the GSkyB channels in the British and Irish market, the Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting's joint-venture wanted to expand into new markets, and they decided that Scandinavia should be the market that they were looking for. British TV programming in Sweden and other Scandinavian countries be likely to be popular and watched alongside American TV shows as well as their own native programming, the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

is a second language to many, or most Scandinavians. On March 10, 1997, Telenor announced 2 new channels from Sky that they will joining their CTV satellite service in autumn of that year, thus these channels included The Sky News & Documentaries Channel and The Sky Family Entertainment Channel, both of which were distributed via Telenor's Thor 1 satellite (at one degree west), The Sky Family Entertainment Channel (or shortened as Sky Entertainment) was originally going to be an GSkyB channel, while the Sky News & Documentaries Channel wholly owned by Sky. The Sky Family Entertainment Channel was originally intended to be an selection of content available from BSkyB's satellite TV service in the UK and Ireland, it might be most likely that Granada's channels were chosen as there will be no territorial broadcast rights issues. On September 15, 1997, both Sky Entertainment, along with

Sky News & Documentaries The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

launched on Telenor's CTV satellite service in Scandinavia, it was the first time that a Sky-operated channel broadcast in Scandinavia since Sky's TV channel were encrypted (for paying customers in the British and Irish markets only) in September 1993, with only a exception to

Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. John Ryley is the hea ...

, which was free-to-air and can be received on Astra. Both channels was available up to 225,000 CTV subscribers, plus for cable subscribers. Both Sky Entertainment and

were in fact, combinations of channels, with Sky News & Documentaries consisted of

airing from 02:00 to 18:00 CET, while

The Computer Channel .tv (formerly The Computer Channel, pronounced as Dot TV and referred to on-screen as .tv - the technology channel) was a British television channel dedicated to technology. .tv was owned and operated by British Sky Broadcasting. The channel fi ...

airing from 18:00 to 20:00 CET, and

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television television network, network and flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel owned by the National Geograp ...

airing from 20:00 to 02:00 CET. Sky Entertainment also had three Granada channels and one, which were different from these Granada channels airing between the 24-hour day. In Sky Entertainment's case, the channels were: At the time during the launch, Sky Entertainment shared its analogue D2-MAC transponder on

Intelsat 707 Intelsat 707 (also known as IS-707 and Intelsat 7-F7) is a geostationary communications satellite that was built by Space Systems/Loral (SSL). It is located in the orbital position of 53° west longitude.. The satellite is owned by Intelsat. T ...

with Danish public service broadcaster

DR2 DR2 (DR To) is the second television channel operated by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) in Denmark. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more "highbrow" programmes than the more mainstream and popular DR1. Like ...

, meaning that CMT and

Granada Good Life Granada Breeze was a lifestyle channel operated by Granada Sky Broadcasting, a joint venture between Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting. The channel was launched as Granada Good Life on 1 October 1996. Programming It was aimed a ...

were the only channels broadcasting to analogue viewers, meanwhile, DR2 was broadcasting between 5 p.m. and 1 a.m., meaning the programmes of Granada Plus and/or Granada Men & Motors weren't available to analogue viewers. The channels were broadcast on the 1 degree west frequency as a part of the CTV package. When CMT Europe closed down in 1998, it's airtime on Sky Entertainment was replaced by

Video Zone Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

. On February 14, 1999, Sky Entertainment will be ceasing transmissions at 1am CET, after just 18 months on-air. Bosses had a meeting in London on the channel's final days to decide which is the channel fate and who is gonna replace it, also an alternative Sky service will be considered, but these never happened. However,

and the

continued to be broadcast in Scandinavia till this day, but as separate channels.

References

{{reflist Pan-Nordic television channels Television channels and stations established in 1997 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1999 Defunct television channels in Sweden Defunct television channels in Norway Defunct television channels in Denmark Defunct television channels in Finland