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

Published: 27 August 2026

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, Friday 28 August 2026, archive anthology drama opens the evening — Tales Of The Unexpected at 6pm and 6:30pm, then Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ Into Thin Air and Salvage at 7pm and 7:30pm. From 8pm the channel sets aside the rest of primetime for the complete six-part Dolly Parton: Song By Song, back to back through to 11pm, followed by the documentary Dolly Parton: America Reunited. Dolly Parton died on 25 August 2026, aged 80, after what her family described as a brief cancer battle, and tonight’s schedule follows that news. Full breakdown below.

Sky Arts Schedule: Friday 28 August 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Friday 28 August 2026, on Freeview 11.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Sky Arts today

Friday’s overnight hours open with The Unstoppable Shirley MacLaine at 12:45am and I Am Patrick Swayze at 2am, before Play In A Day and Dickens In Italy With David Harewood take the pre-dawn slots. HMS Pinafore Opera With ENO fills the two hours from 6am, then two editions of Artist Of The Year: Masterclass run from 8am.

Archive drama takes over from 9am, with two runs each of Tales Of The Unexpected and Alfred Hitchcock Presents either side of Discovering: Dirk Bogarde at 11am. Dickens In Italy With David Harewood returns at midday, then a further Tales Of The Unexpected pair at 1pm, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour at 2pm, Stories From Tate Britain at 3pm and Discovering: Charles Laughton at 4pm carry the schedule through to 5pm, when Portrait Artist Of The Year 2023 opens the early evening ahead of tonight’s primetime run. Full primetime breakdown below.

Sky Arts tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Sky Arts primetime line-up for tonight, Friday 28 August 2026.

Tales Of The Unexpected — Sky Arts, 6pm

Roald Dahl’s twist-in-the-tale anthology opens the evening with the third episode of its fourth run, one of the daytime archive’s steadier performers doing a second shift in primetime.

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

A fourth episode follows straight after at 6:30pm, before the schedule hands over to Hitchcock’s own half-hour strand.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Into Thin Air — Sky Arts, 7pm

Into Thin Air opens a back-to-back Hitchcock Presents pairing at 7pm. Sky Arts’ own listing and the wider feed disagree by one place on exactly where this sits in the original run, so it’s worth taking on its own terms rather than by number.

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

Salvage completes the pair at 7:30pm, closing out the archive drama before the evening turns over entirely to Dolly Parton at 8pm.

Dolly Parton: Song By Song — Sky Arts, 8pm to 11pm

Sky Arts clears the whole of the rest of primetime for Dolly Parton: Song By Song, running all six episodes back to back rather than spreading them across separate nights. Each half hour is built around one song and how it came to be written — Coat Of Many Colors, Jolene, I Will Always Love You, It’s All Wrong, But It’s Alright, 9 To 5 and Travelin’ Thru carry the evening in that order, with Miley Cyrus and Lily Tomlin among those contributing to the series. Treat it as one long sitting rather than six separate bookings; that’s how the schedule has been built tonight.

Dolly Parton: America Reunited — Sky Arts, 11pm

Dolly Parton died on 25 August 2026, aged 80, after what her family described as a brief cancer battle; her death was reported the same day by NBC News, CBS News, CNN and other US outlets. This 75-minute documentary follows straight on from the Song By Song run and gathers reflection on her career rather than functioning as a standalone commission slotted in by chance. Sky Arts has handed the whole of Friday primetime over to one artist.

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 Tales Of The Unexpected episodes open the evening at 6pm and 6:30pm, followed by Alfred Hitchcock Presents’ Into Thin Air and Salvage at 7pm and 7:30pm. From 8pm, Sky Arts runs all six episodes of Dolly Parton: Song By Song back to back through to 11pm, followed by the documentary Dolly Parton: America Reunited. Dolly Parton died on 25 August 2026, aged 80, and tonight’s schedule follows that news. 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 is different from most Sky Arts evenings. Dolly Parton died on 25 August 2026, aged 80, and the channel has handed three full hours from 8pm to the complete Song By Song series, followed at 11pm by the documentary America Reunited. It’s a straightforward handover of the schedule to one subject rather than a themed night with extras bolted on. The two Hitchcock Presents episodes beforehand, Into Thin Air and Salvage, are ordinary as the archive strand usually is, even if the listings feed can’t agree with itself on exactly where they sit in the original run.

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