Sky Replay
Sky Replay is a British pay television channel operated by Sky as a sister channel to Sky Max and Sky Witness. The current channel began broadcasting (as Sky One Mix) in December 2002. The 'Sky 2' name and format had earlier been used for a similar service which broadcast on analogue platforms for a year from 1996. On 27 August 2020, the service rebranded as Sky Replay. The channel broadcasts repeats of programmes from Sky Max and Sky Witness.
"Sky 2" redirects here. For the album, see Sky 2 (album).Broadcast area
1 September 1996 (original)
9 December 2002 (relaunch)
31 August 1997 (original)
National Geographic Channel (original)
Sky One Mix (2002–2004)
Sky Mix (2004–2005)
Sky Two (2005–2008, 2017–2020)
Sky2 (2008–2011)
Sky 2 (1996–1997, 2011–2017)
Watch live (UK and Ireland only)
Watch live (UK and Ireland only)
Watch live (UK only)
Branding and presentation[edit]
Original Channel (1996–1997)[edit]
Sky 2 originally was launched on 1 September 1996 and served as a sister channel to Sky 1 in the evening, timesharing with Fox Kids. The channel was introduced to offer an expanded range of general entertainment programming, with Sky 2 airing a mixture of programmes already carried on Sky 1 along with programmes exclusive to the channel. Sky 2 however was not as successful as Sky had hoped, and would close nearly a year later without any notice on 31 August 1997. The channel was then replaced by the UK's version of National Geographic.
Sky One Mix/Sky Mix (2002–2005)[edit]
On 7 October 2002, Sky announced that they would launch their first digital channel in over a decade; Sky One Mix, functioning as Sky One's sister channel and catch-up service.[1] The channel's launch was announced for 9 December on 13 November 2002[2] and launched on Sky Digital that day.
The channel, initially broadcasting from noon to midnight, offered up the best of Sky One's programmes, as well as a dedicated children's block called "Animix", which broadcast from 3:30pm every weekday. [3] The channel used a logo and presentation design similar to that used by Sky One at the time, but with a yellow and black theme as opposed to the orange and white used by Sky One at the time.
Initially exclusive to Sky Digital, the channel was added to NTL at the end of July 2003 as part of a two-year contract extension between BSkyB and NTL.[4]
On 21 September 2004, to coincide with Sky One's new look, Sky One Mix was rebranded as simply Sky Mix, although it kept with Sky One's previous branding as before and kept the same idents without the mention of the word "One".
Programming[edit]
Sky Replay is in many ways a catch-up service for Sky's main entertainment channels, Sky Witness and Sky Max (formerly the now defunct Sky One) broadcasting their popular shows. Doing so, Sky Two is described as a time shuffle channel, so called to distinguish it from timeshift channels, which rebroadcast their principal channel, delayed by one hour.
Following the closure of the original Sky Real Lives in 2010, some of its factual and reality programming was relocated to Sky Two. Following the closure of Bravo in 2011, Sky Two adopted some of its programming, particularly in the science-fiction, drama and documentary fields.
With the retooling of Sky Living into the crime and procedural focused Sky Witness, some former Sky Living programming (such as Four Weddings, My Kitchen Rules and Most Haunted) has transferred into the Sky Replay daytime schedule.[11]
International[edit]
A version of Sky Replay for Germany launched on Sky Deutschland and Sky Ticket on 4 October 2021, replacing the previous local box-set channel Sky Serien & Shows.[12]