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.

From 8pm Thursday settles into a run of screen biography. Discovering: Michelle Pfeiffer profiles the Dangerous Liaisons and The Fabulous Baker Boys star, Clint Eastwood: A Life In Film has the actor-director talking through a career that runs from Westerns to Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, and I Am Alfred Hitchcock closes the night with archive footage and fresh interviews on the Master of Suspense.

Sky Arts Schedule: Thursday 13 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Thursday 13 August 2026, on Freeview 11.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Sky Arts today

Thursday’s overnight run opens with a warts-and-all look at Gilbert & George from midnight, tracing the artist duo’s decades-long partnership through their more confrontational work. Statues Redressed follows at 2am, watching artists and community groups dress Liverpool’s public statues for a summer project. Skinner & Mina’s Literary Road Trip visits Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift at 4am, with Ian Hislop joining the pair to unpick 18th-century satire before a stop at Pope’s grotto. The Art Of Film turns to eighties horror at 5am, and a staged recording of the musical The Wiz, reworked with a soul and R&B sound, runs from 6am to 8am. Two Artist Of The Year: Masterclass tutorials close out the morning, covering limited-palette work at 8am and animal portraits at 8:30am.

The daytime schedule leans on archive drama and biography. Two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes open proceedings at 9am and 9:30am, followed by two Alfred Hitchcock Presents entries at 10am and 10:30am, the second a new addition to the run built around a paroled safe-cracker hired to test his old employer’s vault. Discovering: Yul Brynner covers the actor’s journey from The King and I to Westworld at 11am, and The Art Of Film returns at 12pm to look at how directors have depicted war on screen. Two further Tales Of The Unexpected instalments run at 1pm and 1:30pm, before an hour of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour at 2pm and The Eighties examining Wall Street excess at 3pm. Discovering: Claude Rains, tracing the Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia actor’s career, takes the 4pm slot, and the 2022 series of Portrait Artist Of The Year closes the afternoon at 5pm with guests including Jim Carter, Benjamin Zephaniah and Ellie Simmonds.

Sky Arts tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Sky Arts primetime line-up for tonight, Thursday 13 August 2026.

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

Two of the anthology’s twist-ending episodes run back to back before the evening’s documentaries begin. John Mills stars in the 6pm story as a man unsettled by a chance encounter that dredges up a painful memory, while Joan Collins plays the woman who unsettles a nervous vicar’s quiet life when she joins his congregation at 6:30pm.

Voices Of The Valleys — Sky Arts, 7pm

New. The second of three episodes follows Welsh male-voice choirs from different parts of the country, each working towards a performance under its own particular pressures.

Discovering: Michelle Pfeiffer — Sky Arts, 8pm

This instalment of the biography strand traces Michelle Pfeiffer’s career from her early roles through Dangerous Liaisons and The Fabulous Baker Boys to her more recent work, with the awards recognition that came along the way.

Clint Eastwood: A Life In Film — Sky Arts, 9pm

Eastwood discusses six decades in the business, from his Western roles through to the director’s chair on Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, in an extended interview rather than a clip-heavy tribute.

I Am Alfred Hitchcock — Sky Arts, 10:50pm

Closing the night, this documentary pairs archive footage with new interviews to unpick why Hitchcock’s films still get picked over by critics and film students today. It rounds off an evening that has already leaned on two of cinema’s defining names, following straight on from the Eastwood profile.

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 Voices Of The Valleys takes the 7pm slot. Discovering: Michelle Pfeiffer follows at 8pm, Clint Eastwood: A Life In Film at 9pm, and I Am Alfred Hitchcock closes the night at 10:50pm. 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 leans harder than usual on the biography strand. Two Tales Of The Unexpected repeats fill the run-in to 7pm, then a new Voices Of The Valleys gives the evening its one home-grown commission. From 8pm it’s three profiles of major screen names back to back: Michelle Pfeiffer, Clint Eastwood, and Hitchcock himself closing out the night. It’s a heavier, more archive-driven line-up than the concert-and-competition nights that usually define the channel, but it plays to Sky Arts’ other strength: nobody else free-to-air gives a film career this much room to breathe.

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