Sky Arts TV Guide: Listings, Schedule & What’s On Sky Arts Tonight

Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated arts channel: live concerts, gallery and biography documentaries, its own painting competitions, and a great deal of archive drama holding the gaps together. It has been free-to-air since 17 September 2020, when it arrived on Freeview and Freesat alongside its existing Sky and Virgin Media carriage. No subscription, no account, no catch.

Tonight, Friday 7 August 2026, the archive drama runs into primetime again before the evening turns to music, with a Bob Dylan documentary at 8pm and two Sex Pistols programmes after it. Discovering: Bruce Willis takes the 8pm slot, a new edition of The Very Best of Peter Sellers airs at 9pm, and Spike Milligan: The Unseen Archive closes the night from 10:10pm. Times and channel numbers for every platform are in the tables below.

Sky Arts Schedule: Friday 7 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Friday 7 August 2026, on Freeview 11.

What’s on Sky Arts today

Friday’s overnight hours open with The Eighties looking back at the Reagan years at 12:25am, followed by a collection of Rik Mayall’s earliest sketches at 1:20am and a home-movie profile of Cleo Laine at 2:15am. World War II & Cinema traces Hollywood and British studios through the war years at 3:10am, and the Sky Arts Book Club brings Andi Oliver and Elizabeth Day together with the Focus Group book club to discuss Adam Buxton’s memoir at 4:05am. Wonderland reaches its third instalment on the great children’s authors at 5am, Miriam Margolyes narrates Peter And The Wolf with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at 6am, and Bob Ross works through three episodes of The Joy Of Painting from 7:30am.

From 9am the anthology strands take over. Tales Of The Unexpected and Alfred Hitchcock Presents trade half-hour slots through the morning, Discovering: James Coburn gets a full hour at 11am, and Wonderland closes its four-part run at midday. The same rotation continues into the afternoon, with two more Tales Of The Unexpected episodes at 1pm and 1:30pm and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour at 2pm, before The Eighties looks back at 1980s television at 3pm and Discovering: Dean Martin profiles the Rat Pack star at 4pm. Portrait Artist Of The Year returns to its 2022 series at 5pm, with Elizabeth Day, Khadija Mellah and Nick Grimshaw among the judging panel for the opening heat.

Sky Arts tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Sky Arts primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 7 August 2026.

Tales of the Unexpected — Sky Arts, 6pm and 6:30pm

Two of the better-known ones. “The Landlady” at 6pm has a young man arriving in Bath and slowly working out what is wrong with his charming landlady. “Neck” at 6:30pm sees a wife’s affair dealt with by her husband’s very loyal butler.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Sky Arts, 7pm and 7:30pm

“Bad Actor” at 7pm stars Robert Duvall as an alcoholic actor who strangles the friend who took his part, then improvises a way to dispose of him. “The Door Without a Key” at 7:30pm has a man claiming amnesia and a boy claiming abandonment, and a desk sergeant who believes neither.

Bob Dylan: The Other Side of the Mirror — Sky Arts, 8pm

Murray Lerner’s film, assembled from Dylan’s Newport Folk Festival appearances across the mid-sixties. No narration and no talking heads, just the performances and the moment the audience turns.

I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol — Sky Arts, 9:35pm

The evening pivots hard from folk to punk, told from inside the band.

Sex Pistols: Classic Albums — Sky Arts, 11:20pm

The Classic Albums treatment to close, taking the record apart track by track.

What kind of shows are on Sky Arts

Live concerts and music documentaries

Concerts get the money and the camera crews, from arena nights with Andre Rieu down to something as small as Nicola Benedetti & Friends. Classic Albums goes through a record’s studio history track by track, usually with someone who was there at the mixing desk soloing the parts. The Discovering strand does the same job for careers rather than records.

Its own arts competitions

Portrait Artist of the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year are the channel’s best-known commissions: amateur and professional painters working against the clock on a real sitter or a real view, judged by a rotating panel that has included Kate Bryan, Kathleen Soriano and Tai-Shan Schierenberg, with Stephen Mangan hosting. The jeopardy is real because the deadline is real, which is more than most competition formats can say. Watercolour Challenge, now running as an archive repeat, is the lighter version: three amateurs, one scene, four hours.

Archive drama and classic film

The two Hitchcock strands and Tales of the Unexpected are anthology drama, built on twist endings rather than continuing storylines, which is exactly why they survive being shown out of order at half past one on a midweek afternoon. The Movies puts short introductions in front of older features so daytime viewers get some context first.

How to watch Sky Arts

Channel numbers

Here’s where to find Sky Arts across the main UK television platforms:

Virgin Media, Sky and Freely channel numbers can vary slightly by region and box, so your on-screen guide is the definitive source if these don’t match.

Streaming online

There’s no free standalone web player for Sky Arts in the way some other free-to-air channels offer one. Existing Sky TV customers can stream it through the Sky Go app at no extra cost, while anyone can add a NOW Entertainment Membership to watch Sky Arts live plus its substantial on-demand library, though that membership carries its own monthly cost.

Sky Arts streaming and catch-up

The linear schedule is the catch-up service. Sky Arts repeats its concert specials and music documentaries often, usually around an anniversary or whenever an artist is back in the news, so a missed broadcast tends to come round again within a few months. Worth checking the listings rather than assuming it has gone.

Frequently asked questions

What channel is Sky Arts on Freeview?

Sky Arts is on Freeview channel 11, with no subscription or account needed to watch it.

Is Sky Arts free to watch?

Yes. It’s been free-to-air since 17 September 2020, when it launched on Freeview and Freesat. There’s advertising during programmes, but no fee to watch the live channel on any platform.

What’s on Sky Arts tonight?

Two episodes of Tales Of The Unexpected open the evening at 6pm and 6:30pm, then a new episode of Voices Of The Valleys airs at 7pm. Discovering: Bruce Willis takes the 8pm slot, a new edition of The Very Best of Peter Sellers follows at 9pm, and Spike Milligan: The Unseen Archive closes the night from 10:10pm. Full times are in the schedule table above.

Can I watch Sky Arts online for free?

Only through an aerial, dish or existing Sky/Virgin box. There’s no free web stream for a phone or laptop. Existing Sky customers get Sky Go at no extra cost; everyone else would need a paid NOW Entertainment Membership for Sky Arts live plus its on-demand catalogue.

Verdict

Sky Arts earns its keep, mostly. Nothing else on free-to-air British television commissions arts programming at this scale, and the concert strand is the sort of thing a subscription service would happily charge for. The archive drama filling the daytime is comfortable rather than essential, and there is an awful lot of it.

Tonight follows the same shape. Two more Tales Of The Unexpected repeats fill the run-in before Voices Of The Valleys opens its new run at 7pm, and the evening’s two genuine commissions, Discovering: Bruce Willis and a fresh edition of The Very Best of Peter Sellers, take the 8pm and 9pm slots. Spike Milligan: The Unseen Archive closes out the night from 10:10pm.

Related: BBC Four TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide