Entertainment, Columbia, Orion and Buena Vista Distribution Company (includes Touchstone and Disney). Prior to its launch, Sky Movies signed first-run deals with 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros.
Launched on 5 February 1989, Sky Movies was originally a single service offered as part of Sky's original four-channel package – alongside Sky News, Eurosport and Sky Channel (later became Sky One) – on the Astra 1A satellite system, with the first film shown on this network at 6.00pm was 1987's Project X, starring Matthew Broderick. In 2016, Sky rebranded its television film channel operations under one single branding on 8 July, the channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland were rebranded from Sky Movies to Sky Cinema on 22 September in Germany and Austria, the Sky Cinema brand (originally used for the flagship network) was extended to the German channels in the group formerly known as Sky Film the Italian Sky Cinema channels followed suit on 5 November by adopting the brand packages introduced in the United Kingdom and Ireland earlier.įurther information: Timeline of Sky Cinema 1989–1998: Early years
In the United Kingdom, Sky Cinema channels currently broadcast on the Sky satellite and Virgin Media cable platforms, and in addition Sky Cinema on demand content are available through these as well as via Now TV, BT TV and TalkTalk TV. Sky Cinema is a British subscription film service owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). (downscaled to 1080i and 16:9 576i for their HDTV and SDTV feeds respectively)
It is not to be confused with Sky Showcase.