Sky will drop one of its two Sky Arts channels, home to Jon Hamm drama A Young Doctor’s Notebook and the Playhouse Presents series starring Kylie Minogue and Mark Strong, later this year.
Part of a shakeup of the broadcaster’s channels from 9 June that will also see the axing of Sky 3D, the two channels will be replaced by a single “super channel” moved higher up Sky’s electronic programme guide in a bid to boost audiences and reduce repeats.
The channel, home to shows including Portrait Artist of the Year and Melvyn Bragg’s The South Bank Show, alongside its classical, opera and rock music output, will be given a 10% budget boost as part of the changes.
Phil Edgar-Jones, head of Sky Arts, who took over the network a year ago, said it was a “massive win” for the channel which will move up from the fourth to the third page of the Sky EPG in the slot currently occupied by Sky2.
“I have argued for quite a long time we should have one Sky Arts channel not two. I didn’t see the sense when we can do one super channel effectively,” he told the Guardian.
He said none of the current output would be dropped.
“That’s the beauty of this, we are repeating less, structuring the week differently,” said Edgar-Jones, who previously oversaw Big Brother for Channel 4.
“Being on page 3 [of the EPG] we’ll have more eyeballs, footfall. It is hard to predict exactly [how audiences will increase], but up to 30%,” he added.
Sky Arts is also getting a budget increase of about 10% and is creating an on-demand platform, which will have a prominent logo, and signposts to “library” collections of opera and ballet through to heavy metal.
“I think it is true when it comes to the arts, most people don’t like all the arts, so a Johnny Cash fan isn’t necessarily a fan of the Globe Theatre productions,” said Edgar-Jones. “People tend not to sit on the channel and watch everything. They cherry-pick the genre they are enthusiastic about.”
Edgar-Jones said that the TV landscape has changed since Sky Arts launched a second channel in 2008, one to focus on more popular contemporary art including rock concerts, and the second on classical music and opera.
“We can put that all in one place quite easily because of the on-demand offering. The perception, when I started, was that the older audience wasn’t taking up on demand as swiftly as the younger audience, but that turns out in our research not to be true.”
Sky Arts appeals to relatively upmarket ABC1 viewers aged typically between 45 and 55, skewing towards male viewers who make up 55% of the audience, attracted by the vintage rock.
The programme budget is currently estimated to be upwards of £8m a year, with a monthly reach of about 7 million viewers.
However, audiences for individual shows remain a fraction of those to the mainstream channels, with primetime shows regularly watched by fewer than 10,000 viewers in the overnight ratings. Its most popular shows, such as the Playhouse series, can attract about 100,000 viewers.
The new schedule is also being streamlined, with each day of the week having a particular theme: the most popular strand, Portrait Artist/Landscape Artist of the Year, will run on Tuesday, designated factual entertainment night.
Music and concerts, including violinist André Rieu, and festivals, will still dominate on Saturday and Sundays.
The relaunch in June will kick off with a new talent show, Guitar Star, and a “sex season” later in the summer will include a BalletBoyz production themed on the Kama Sutra. Edgar-Jones describes it as “quite startling”.
Sky Arts has gone through a series of changes since it was launched in 2000 as the subscription Arts World channel with backing from the Guardian Media Group.
The then BSkyB stepped in to take a 50% stake in 2003, took full control two years later, and then rechristened it Sky Arts.
