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

Published: 14 September 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, Tuesday 15 September 2026, leans on archive drama before the documentaries take over: two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes run back to back from 6pm, then Garbo: Where Did You Go? takes the 8pm hour. Wonderland: From JM Barrie to JRR Tolkien follows at 9:55pm, ahead of The Movies and a profile of Alec Guinness closing out the night. Full breakdown below.

Sky Arts Schedule: Tuesday 15 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Tuesday 15 September 2026, on Freeview 11.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Sky Arts today

Mozart’s Sister opens the overnight run at 12:15am, followed by Notre-Dame: The Renaissance at 2:20am and the first episode of National Trust: Garden Treasures at 3:50am. Painting Birds With Jim And Nancy Moir takes 5:05am, then Jesus Christ Superstar: Live In Concert fills breakfast from 6am, before two Joy Of Painting episodes lead into two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes through mid-morning.

Discovering: Susan Sarandon and a Beach Boys edition of Classic Albums fill late morning into midday, before two more Tales Of The Unexpected episodes, an Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Painting Birds With Jim And Nancy Moir carry the afternoon. Discovering: Christopher Plummer at 4pm and Portrait Artist Of The Year 2024 at 5pm close out the day ahead of the evening line-up below.

Sky Arts tonight — primetime and the evening schedule

Here’s the Sky Arts primetime line-up for tonight, Tuesday 15 September 2026.

Tales Of The Unexpected — Sky Arts, 6pm

Roald Dahl’s twist-ending anthology opens tonight’s archive run, series five building toward its sting in the closing minutes as it always does.

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

A second episode follows straight after: same short, sharp format, a different twist.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Sky Arts, 7pm

Hitchcock’s own dry introductions bookend another half-hour mystery from the anthology’s first series, still working six decades on.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Sky Arts, 7:30pm

The second of tonight’s pair runs straight on, closing out ninety minutes of archive drama before the evening turns to documentary.

Garbo: Where Did You Go? — Sky Arts, 8pm

This documentary traces what became of Greta Garbo after she walked away from Hollywood at the height of her fame, spending close to two hours on the decades she spent avoiding exactly this kind of attention.

Wonderland: From JM Barrie to JRR Tolkien — Sky Arts, 9:55pm

Series one continues by looking at how two very different writers built their fantasy worlds, Neverland and Middle-earth treated as two answers to the same creative problem.

The Movies — Sky Arts, 10:55pm

The channel’s introduction strand opens its run, giving an older feature some context before handing over to it.

Alec Guinness: A Class Act — Sky Arts, 11:55pm

A profile of the actor closes the night, spanning Ealing comedy through to Star Wars and the David Lean films in between.

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 and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes open primetime from 6pm, then Garbo: Where Did You Go? takes the 8pm hour. Wonderland: From JM Barrie to JRR Tolkien, The Movies and a profile of Alec Guinness close out the night from 9:55pm. 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’s evening keeps to a familiar shape: archive drama first, documentary second. Two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes fill the run-up to primetime, then Garbo: Where Did You Go? takes the whole 8pm hour, before Wonderland, The Movies and the Alec Guinness profile carry the night from 9:55pm. Standard practice for a channel filling twenty-four hours a day on a mix of its own commissions, licensed film and archive drama.

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