Sky announces the launch of Sky Documentaries, Sky Nature and Sky HISTORY.

Sky Documentaries and Sky Nature will be launching on 27th May 2020 alongside Sky HISTORY, a co-branded venture between Sky and A+E Networks previously known as HISTORY.

The new channels will include extensive on demand libraries and offer hundreds of hours of factual programming, providing an unmissable mix of premium, original commissions and acquired content.

The channels will be available to Sky customers at no extra charge through linear and on demand. They will also launch on NOW TV, available as part of the NOW TV Entertainment Pass.

Sky Documentaries will be the home of world-class, real life stories from award-winning film makers, including HBO, SHOWTIME® and Hulu exclusives and new Sky original documentaries. With a mix of feature length documentaries and series that will challenge, provoke and entertain, the channel will house 100 on demand titles. The channel will cover a wide range of topics from sport, to politics, to real-life controversies. Hillary (TX 11 June) provides a remarkably intimate portrait of public woman Hillary Clinton; McMillions (TX 27 May) tells the story of a gaming scam that lasted a decade; Ali Vs Cavett (TX 29 May) portrays the life of boxing legend Muhammad Ali through the lens of his frequent appearances on the Dick Cavett Show; Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men (TX 24 June)  looks back on the group’s career combining intimate and reflective interviews from each of the nine living members, and The Plastic Nile (TX 1 June) looks at the devastating effect of plastic pollution on the world’s longest river.

Sky Nature will be home to breath-taking natural history programming, dedicated to exploring the beauty and wonder of the natural world and inspiring us all to do more to look after it. The channel will feature landmark Sky original series Wild Animal Babies (TX 30 May) which follows Patrick Aryee and an adorable cast of baby animal characters as they face their first days, weeks and months on planet Earth. The channel will feature Sky’s existing David Attenborough collection and be the home of Love Nature programming with shows including Gangs of Lemur Island (TX 27 May), Africa’s Underwater Wonders ( TX 27 May) and Mysteries of the Mekong (TX 28 May).

Sky HISTORY tells ground-breaking stories full of colourful characters through a mix of award-winning, talent-led UK commissions, premium innovative documentaries and global hit franchise programming. Join host William Shatner and discover stories that have mystified mankind for centuries in The UnXplained (TX 9 June); explore the unique investigations into the engineering mysteries behind the world’s most breath-taking ancient monuments in Ancient Superstructures (TX 1 June). Secret Wars Uncovered (TX 19 June) reveals the facts behind battles that were shrouded in corruption and misinformation and Washington (TX 4 July), produced by renowned historian Doris Kearns Godwin and narrated by Emmy award-winning actor Jeff Daniels, chips away at the marbled image of America’s first president to seek the truth behind the legend.

A+E Networks® UK and Sky Strengthen Joint Venture with Launch of Sky HISTORY

A+E Networks® UK and Sky, as part of their successful 25-year joint venture, will launch the co-branded Sky HISTORY channel in Spring 2020.

A+E Networks UK channel HISTORY®, which will become Sky HISTORY, enjoyed a highly successful 2019, with audience share up by 11%. The foundation of this growth is the success of long-running franchises like Curse of Oak Island and new hit series such as UnXplained with William Shatner. There has also been greater investment in local commissions, including innovative talent-led UK programming; Damian Lewis: Spy Wars, James Nesbitt: Disasters That Changed Britain and Al Murray: Why Does Everyone Hate the English, which was awarded the Gamechanger Programme of the Year prize at the 2019 Broadcast Digital Awards.

Building on the success of 2019, Sky HISTORY, will have further investment in locally commissioned original programming in 2020 and beyond. The additional titles will showcase premium factual series and specials delivered by a range of UK production companies.

The channel will be available on linear TV and on demand in the UK and Ireland and will also be available on streaming service NOW TV for the first time.

Sky HISTORY is the flagship brand of the A+E Networks® UK family of channels: Crime+Investigation®, Sky HISTORY2 (formerly HISTORY2®), Lifetime® and free-to-air channel BLAZE®. All channels will continue to broadcast on Sky, Virgin Media, BT and TalkTalk.

Sky HISTORY will continue to be managed and operated by the A+E Networks® UK team from their Hammersmith offices.

“We are delighted to be deepening our partnership with Sky,” said Dean Possenniskie, Managing Director of A+E Networks® UK.  “It is exciting to be taking the HISTORY® brand to a new level in the U.K. with greater commissioning investment and broader reach. Our joint venture with Sky has been a long-standing success—this innovative brand partnership further strengthens its future.”

Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content at Sky, said: “The launch of Sky HISTORY will build on our existing channel portfolio and complement new channel brands Sky Documentaries and Sky Nature, which will also be coming in Spring 2020. The continuation of our strong partnership with A+E Networks® UK will mean more investment in premium original content and make it easier for our customers to find the shows they want to watch.”