Sky One

Don't you find that the Sky One schedule at the moment is in crisis and that the channel looks very tired. We know they aren't in a position to produce many original productions, however they did once have a reputation for bringing the best from the US to our screens. This was fine, the channel had direction and in it's heyday was bringing the best imports to our screens.

However, they lost Friends, ER, The West Wing (after series 1) there are no more X-Files, Buffy, Early Edition, Xena, Highlander, Melrose Place and they now rely too much on repeats of The Simpsons, Star Trek, Stargate, Kirsty's Home Videos, and 20-somethings getting p-issed on holiday.

Most of the best from the states can now be found elsewhere, programmes such as 24, CSI, Friends, Will & Grace, ER, The West Wing, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Sex & The City, The Shield would all have been mopped up by Sky One in its heyday.

Am I being unfair to Sky or Is it a case of more competition with Five & E4 wading in now with bigger cheque books ? Add to that shocking presentation on the channel, just what is drawing you to Sky One these days ?

What I want to know is WHY they seem to show the same 30 or so episodes of The Simpsons in a loop?

There was a point where I had every episode Sky 1 had shown Sky Plus-ed before they re-started again.

You're not being unfair, Square Eyes. The channel is atrocious at the moment ... really, really bad.

This was backed up with the news about the TV show and the trannie today - talk about gutter TV.

There is a big problem with sky one at the moment. They have 2 channels, and they don't have enough programming to fill both of them.

Sky don't have any excuse for this channel anymore - they've got the money to produce original programming, they just have to get off the rear ends and produce it.

IMO the orange has to go too (or at least be adapted) - the channel lacks depth and originality (the colour reflects that too), and is too lager loutish now.

Come on sky, get your act together - sky movies has had 2 revamps in as many years now - what about your main channel eh?

I don't understand why The Simpsons is always shown in a totally random order (and I appeciate BBC2 do it too). Virtually every other programme is shown chronologically, even if they do jump about to other seasons, but it's anybody's guess which order they show The Simpsons in. If they showed it properly it might not get so wearing.

But yes, I agree Sky One has seen a huge slump in recent years. Someone really needs to ask why E4 - a new upstart which came out of nowhere - was able to take both Friends and ER from Sky One after Sky had them as top rated shows for 6 years. And all the quirky one off series like Boot Camp no longer seem to filter down to Sky One. Their only big US series now are The Simpsons and Star Trek, both shown ad nauseum in repeats too.

And the less said about their original productions the better, I can't remember the last vaguely decent thing they made.

Totally agree too about the orange look. It was crap when they introduced it (especially since the never particularly strong square box look had only just got vaguely decent at the time of it's withdrawl), it's still crap now.

Well Dream Team is a high quality production and also the 'i love 1990'-type programmes looking back at the TV years and Football years were also quite well good aswell .
Personally I think the viewer is tiring of this 'i love....' sort of programme and are getting fed up of the same few d-rate celebrities rambling on about these tv programmes!

There are many ups and downs to Sky One, but if you compare the Sky One say of six years ago (That's when I started watching it) and the Sky One of now it is very different. One of the problems nowadays is that they rely too much on The Simpsons, don't get me wrong I believe it should be shown, but it should go back to how it was with a double bill on sundays at 6pm and weeknights at 7pm, when there was only one episode. One good thing which can be said is that there are more original home made shows some which are good, some which are appualing. I haven't seen Dream Team, but I do take everyone's word for it that it is very good, same with other shows like Mile High. I also like the nostalga programmes which are very good, they've repeated TV Years recently (Overnight of course) which are decent to watch and The Pop Years is suprisingly a good programme as well. But there are also some crap programmes, the first being Kirstys Home Videos, it wasn't a bad idea for a one off, but its on far too much now and it isn't funny, frankly people don't watch it for the videos, they watch it for the other more obvious reason. Plus there are shows too like all these new football ones, where really Sky One shouldn't show sport as Sky already has about six channels to do this on already. Plus does anyone think that Dawn Airey; the controller of Sky One is trying to make it like the old Channel 5, as theres more sport and more sex, though it is a ratings stunt, I don't think it has paid off at all. Though years ago Sky One was the channel to have, and I quote from Danny Baker here that the reason why many people subscribe to Sky is because of The Simpsons, and at the time other programmes to. Up until a few years ago Sky One was the channel to have, but many reasons are to blame, such as other channels appearing such as E4, ITV2, FTN etc, I would also say is that Sky have lost many good programmes such as Friends, but also those shows which aren't on anymore such as some of the Star Treks, The X Files, Seinfeld, 3rd Rock from the Sun, where here Sky have either over repeated them or let them go to other channels such as Paramount.

I'm convinced that one of Sky's biggest problems is the number of ads they display - far too many in my opinion!

and of course they are uping the subs yet again, yet Sky One seems to get sh*tter and shi&ter by the day!

Would this be the 4th above inflation rise in as many years then? Is the multichannels package hitting £20 this time?


The Simpsons could do with being on at different times. It's almost always on either in the evenings or in the morning. They should break up the evening double bill and put an episode on in the afternoon or something.

I suppose the other key difference between the Sky One of 6 years ago and now is that Sky themselves have diversified too much. Ventures like Fox Kids saw Sky One loose a lot of it's children's programming. All of the sentai shows like Power Rangers used to be on Sky One, along with many other kids programmes - I remember growing up with 'Sky One Undone', an afternoon kid's slot - all gone now. AFAIK the only kid's programmes they've held onto are the various anime series.


Home made doesn't necessarily mean good. I'd rather watch a good American import than a crap homegrown show.

Sky One appears to be a victim of too much diversification. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sky was much stronger when it only had 20 channels (and better value for money in the days before they started ripping subscribers off left right and centre). It's about time someone sits down and thinks about whether this 'we're having hundreds of channels because we can' policy is a good idea - competition can be a very bad thing if it's badly managed.

Why do Sky, one of the richest TV companies in the world, insist on showing 4 or 5 minutes of adverts every 15 minutes? ITV, who are forced to show adverts as their almost only income show far less adverts than Sky.

I just can't watch Sky one at all, every 10 minutes of programming there's yet another advert break which seems to go on for ever.

Does anyone know why Sky insist on showing so many adverts? Is it just greed, so Murdoch can buy his 100000th luxury yacht?

ITV is available to more than 16 million people, Sky One is available to 6/7 million at most. Therefore, a commercial slot on ITV costs a lot more than a slot on Sky One, so ITV can get away with selling less (and aswell as that, there are restrictions in place to stop them from having too many commercials, which Sky doesn't have). The subscription revenue from a non-premium channel is negligable (that £18.50 a month also has to cover the cost of running your account, and the actual revenue for the channels is divided up amongst a lot of channels, Sky One will only receive a few pence per subscriber), Sky One is mainly funded by adverts.