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 plenty of archive drama besides. 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. There’s no subscription and no account needed to watch it.

Tonight, Tuesday 11 August 2026, two Tales Of The Unexpected repeats and two more Alfred Hitchcock Presents fill the run-in to primetime, before a run of arts documentaries takes over: a new film on Ingres’ 1807 portrait of Madame Duvaucée at 8pm, Art Traffickers on the antiquities trade at 9:15pm, Wonderland turning Gothic at 10:15pm, and The Movies closing the night from 11:15pm.

Sky Arts Schedule: Tuesday 11 August 2026 (Full Listings)

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

What’s on Sky Arts today

Tuesday’s overnight run stays with music. Nicola Benedetti introduces a jazz session recorded at the Edinburgh International Festival from 12:35am, then the London Symphony Orchestra under Pappano perform Ravel, Say and Rachmaninoff from 2:10am. Arts Uncovered checks in on the Sky Arts RSL Writers Awards at 3:50am, and Sky Arts Book Club has Andi Oliver and Elizabeth Day joined by Sebastian Faulks at 4am. The Art Of Film looks at Powell and Pressburger at 5am, and A Swan Lake, the Norwegian National Ballet’s staging of Tchaikovsky’s score, runs from 6am until just before 8am. Two Artist Of The Year: Masterclass tutorials, covering tree painting and miniature portraits, follow at 7:55am and 8:25am.

The daytime schedule is largely archive drama. Four Tales Of The Unexpected episodes are spread across the morning and early afternoon (8:55am, 9:25am, 1pm, 1:30pm), interleaved with two Alfred Hitchcock Presents instalments at 9:55am and 10:30am and an hour of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour at 2pm. Discovering: Robert Shaw profiles the Jaws actor at 11am, The Art Of Film returns with a look at Ealing Studios at 12pm, The Eighties covers the AIDS crisis at 3pm, and Discovering: Rex Harrison follows at 4pm. Portrait Artist Of The Year 2022 closes out the afternoon at 5pm, before the evening schedule takes over.

Sky Arts tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Sky Arts primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 11 August 2026.

Tales Of The Unexpected — Sky Arts, 6pm & 6:30pm

Two more twist-ending outings run back-to-back. The Way Up To Heaven opens at 6pm (series 1, episode 9), with a wife exacting a slow-burn revenge on the husband whose dawdling makes her miss her flight, and Depart in Peace follows at 6:30pm (series 2, episode 10), where a portrait commissioned in secret does not go down well with the sitter.

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

At 7pm (series 7, episode 18), a woman forced to drive a killer to safety keeps passing up her chances to escape, with Charles Bronson among the cast. Strange Miracle follows at 7:30pm (series 7, episode 19), built around a fraudster who fakes paralysis for an insurance payout and then tries faking a miracle cure too.

The World In A Painting: Ingres’ Diamond — Sky Arts, 8pm

A new documentary at 8pm (series 1, episode 4) turns to Madame Duvaucée, painted in 1807 by Ingres, and reads the portrait for what it shows about French high society at the time.

Art Traffickers: Treasures Stolen From The Tombs — Sky Arts, 9:15pm

At 9:15pm (series 1, episode 1), interviews and studio reconstructions trace how looted antiquities made their way out of ancient tombs and into private hands.

Wonderland: Gothic — Sky Arts, 10:15pm

The strand turns to the Gothic at 10:15pm (series 1, episode 3), tracing the idea of the outsider from Angela Carter and Hilary Mantel’s fiction through to films such as Get Out.

The Movies — Sky Arts, 11:15pm

The second half of a look at Hollywood’s Golden Age closes the night at 11:15pm (series 1, episode 2), covering the era of Casablanca and It’s a Wonderful Life.

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 two more Alfred Hitchcock Presents follow at 7pm and 7:30pm. The World In A Painting: Ingres’ Diamond takes the 8pm slot with a new documentary, then Art Traffickers: Treasures Stolen From The Tombs at 9:15pm, Wonderland: Gothic at 10:15pm and The Movies from 11:15pm. 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 Tales Of The Unexpected repeats and two more Alfred Hitchcock Presents fill the run-in to 8pm, then the evening turns to the channel’s real strengths: a new documentary on Ingres’ 1807 portrait of Madame Duvaucée at 8pm, Art Traffickers digging into the antiquities trade at 9:15pm, Wonderland turning Gothic at 10:15pm, and The Movies rounding off the night from 11:15pm.

Related: BBC Four TV Guide | Freeview Channel Guide | Films on TV This Week