Merry Christmas! Roll on 2010...

Tis the xmas season as already the novelty trees are up in Sky Arts Corner. Our giant inflatable snowman is no-where to be seen though. Hopefully he make an appearence, if only for day. He's noisy...so he remains in stored in the tape room.
So, ho ho ho, highlights.....
We've got some fantastic xmas telly lined up across both channels this year.
Sky Arts 1 (also in HD folks!) has:

Sandi’s Christmas Cracker
Sky Arts is taking over Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank on 22 December to broadcast Sandi Toksvig’s Christmas Cracker, a cabaret show that features a glittering array of stars from the worlds of music, magic and comedy, starring the legendary Ronnie Corbett. Hosted by queen of the quips Sandi Toksvig and a house band, the show is a joyous mix of music and comedy. Find out more about Sandi's Christmas Cracker >>
From 8pm, 22 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

Johnny Cash Christmas Special 1978
Celebrate Christmas with the Man In Black and some of the biggest stars of the ’70s. Guests include: Kris Kristofferson and singer Rita Coolidge, Steve Martin and of course June Carter Cash. This way for more on Johnny Cash Christmas Special 1978 >>
From 10.55pm, 24 Dec, Sky Arts 1

Soul Power
A verité documentary, entirely composed of footage shot in 1974 at the 3-night long legendary South African music festival (dubbed "Zaire '74"). It shows the experiences and performances of such musical luminaries as James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, Miriam Makeba, among a host of others. Funk this way for more on Soul Power >>
From 9pm, 25 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

Sky Arts 2 (again, also in HD folks!) has:

Metropolitan Opera at Christmas
It’s the countdown to Christmas but forget advent calendars, we’ve developed our own way to tick off the dark days of December. You don’t need the pricey dress, the binoculars and the private box - Sky Arts 2 brings all the glamour and emotion of one of the world’s premier stages into your living room, with 25 stunning operas in December. Click this way to find out the seasonal Met Opera line-up >> From 8pm, 1 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD

Elaine Page - Live in Concert
Brand new - this recently took place in Sydney at The State Theatre – a beautiful old Edwardian venue – on 31st October 09 - the first time Elaine Page has been filmed in concert since 1991. All her Broadway hits helped along with a sprinkling of anecdotes and stories from her impressive career. See the full line-up for Elaine Page - Live in concert >>
From 7pm, Sun 20 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD

• OTHER UNMISSABLE FESTIVE TREATS INCLUDE

Eating Art
From 7pm, 7 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD

Meat Loaf In Search of Paradise
From 9pm, 18 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

Songman – The Untold Story of Jim Croce
From 9pm, 21 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

Festival! The Newport Folk Festival
From 9pm, 23 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

Jewel in the Crown
From 6pm, 21 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD (7pm start, apart from the first night)

Edinburgh Tattoo 2006 (pipes and drums)
From 3.55pm, 24 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD

Pinter’s Progress: Philip Saville on Harold
From 10pm, 24 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

Playtime
From 10.55pm, 24 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD

Dear Mr Fantasy: A tribute to Jim Capaldi
From 9pm, 26 Dec, Sky Arts 1 / HD

The Fantastic World of Michael Crawford
From 8pm, 27 Dec, Sky Arts 2 / HD

Have a fantastic Christmas everyone - as you're sipping the mulled wine and nibbling the mince pies you can be thinking of our scheduling team here, who are already getting into the month of March 2010!

We're launching another HD channel!

It won't launch properly until 4th May but to hold onto the EPG numbers that we want (very important behind-the-scenes information this!), we're showing content from both Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2 across these HD channels at varying hours/days for the next couple of months, just like we've been doing with the old Sky Arts HD channel.

You'll have your Sky Arts channels all lined up next to each other:
256 - Sky Arts 1
257 - Sky Arts 2
258 - Sky Arts 1 HD (simulcast of 256, but in full HD on programmes that were shot in HD)
259 - Sky Arts 2 HD (simulcast of 257, but in full HD on programmes that were shot in HD)

We hope you're as thrilled as we are with the news and come May 4th we'll have 2 fantastic HD channels on your EPG.
And now that Sky has the amazing deal of Sky+HD for £45 you've no excuse to not see and hear (5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound in some cases!) our content in stunning high definition. Enjoy!

LIVE opera...and live behind the scenes too! See La bohème as you've NEVER seen it before! Only on Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2. Wow, we're good...

We're bringing you a world exclusive...the Sky Arts channels are showing a live broadcast from London's Coliseum...but this is no ordinary live broadcast...
Sky Arts 1 gives you incredible access to what goes on backstage while an opera is being performed live and Sky Arts 2 gives you the actual opera performance...with HD viewers able to watch this simultaniously on Sky Arts HD in stunning clarity of sound and vision.

For more...go to the Sky Arts website feature page about it.

We're pretty excited about bringing something like this to TV viewers - hopefully we'll not only make the opera fans very happy but possibly interest some viewers who've never really experienced opera before.
This is the whole production, warts an' all, as they say. If the leading lady's dress rips backstage then you'll see the panic as the wardrobe team try to stich it up in time to make her cue! Or, perhaps, nothing will go wrong and it'll it be a well-oiled, slick night of flawless movement between the stage and wings. We'll see....!

La bohème live from 7:30pm 2 Feb '09, Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2 and Sky Arts HD

Hello Arts Virgins...

...or, those in Virgin cable homes who've never previously had the pleasure of enjoying Sky Arts...

We're coming to Virgin!

From Thursday, Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts 2 will be available to all those Virgin cable customers who subscribe to the XL package of channels.

Welcome Virgin households, to the wonderful world of arts broadcasting....

Returning to something resembling normality...

After what has been an incredibly busy past few months Sky Arts Corner is finally managing to get itself back to a regular routine. We've successfully re-launched the brand onair as Sky Arts 1, Sky Arts 2 and Sky Arts HD, overhauled the website and planned more original commissions for the coming year than ever before. We're even starting to go home before 10 at night now!

We're currently recording a brand new second season of What The Dickens? with Sandi Toksvig and a third season of The Book Show with Mariella Frostrup (episode 2 onair this Thursday) as well as being in pre-production on our fantastic new Bridge programme that you may have read about in the media - Celebrity Bridge: Grand Slam.

Our launch drinks on Wednesday were a very pleasant affair with people like Tim Marlow, Peter Ackroyd and Antony Gormley...

...and of course the whole Sky Arts team...

Can you guess what the theme was in this corner of the room where we had our "Sky Arts Class of '08" photo taken? The clue is probably in the green 'grass' carpet and the stacked bales of, ahem, hay, ahem....

We hope you're enjoying the new channels and finding the kind of programmes that you want to watch.

Think you know a bit about Italy?

Try our fun video quiz & then challenge your friends! skyarts.co.uk/suggs

Launching on Sky Arts 1 and Sky Arts HD on Oct 21st (7pm), this brand new exclusive series follows Madness frontman Suggs as he journeys through Italy in a Mini for his very own Italian Job, stopping off at various points of cultural interest along the way...possibly not the kind of Italian holiday features that Judith Chalmers ever focused on but then that's why we love Suggs...

The new Sky Arts channel logos

Behold, our new logos. They're replacing the current Sky Arts channel logos on Monday, Oct 20th '08. Our brand logo remains the same. For those of you who've asked on the Sky Arts website about channel DOGs or BUGs onscreen, rest assured that we have no plans here at Sky Arts Corner to add any 'promotional screen furniture' (ahem!) over our broadcast channels.

Sky Arts 1 logo

Sky Arts 1 logo
Sky Arts 2 logo
Sky Arts 2 logo
Sky Arts HD logo
Sky Arts HD logo