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

Published: 17 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, Friday 18 September 2026, leans on archive drama before the evening turns to music: two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes run back to back from 6pm, then Guy Garvey: From The Vaults takes the 8pm hour. Kate Bush: The Timeless Genius holds the 9pm slot, and Bjork: Cornucopia closes out the night at 10:15pm. Full breakdown below.

Sky Arts Schedule: Friday 18 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Friday 18 September 2026, on Freeview 11.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Sky Arts today

The Very Best of Peter Sellers opens the overnight run at 12:20am, followed by I Am Richard Pryor at 1:40am and an episode of National Trust: Garden Treasures at 3:40am. Painting Birds With Jim And Nancy Moir picks up at 5am, before Andre Rieu: Dancing Through the Skies fills breakfast from 6am and two Joy Of Painting episodes lead into two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes through mid-morning.

Discovering: Sean Connery carries late morning into midday, when Phil Collins: Classic Albums takes over, before two more Tales Of The Unexpected episodes, an Alfred Hitchcock Hour instalment and another Painting Birds With Jim And Nancy Moir fill the afternoon. Discovering: Robin Williams at 4pm and Portrait Artist Of The Year 2025 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, Friday 18 September 2026.

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

Two twist-ending episodes open the evening: a wealthy American searching London for lost family, then an art gallery owner drawn to a talented but troubled artist.

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

A second archive pairing follows. A woman buys a mink coat that turns out to be stolen, and a man finds himself the prime suspect in a murder he didn’t expect to be pulled into.

Guy Garvey: From The Vaults — Sky Arts, 8pm

The Elbow frontman digs into the BBC’s 1987 archive, pulling out performances from The Smiths, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode and The Cure. The first of three music profiles that carry the rest of the night.

Kate Bush: The Timeless Genius — Sky Arts, 9pm

A look back across Kate Bush’s career and the influence it has had on the generations of artists who followed her.

Bjork: Cornucopia — Sky Arts, 10:15pm

A 2023 concert film shot at Lisbon’s Altice Arena, drawing on Utopia, Vulnicura and Fossora for a heavily staged, visually dense set that closes the night.

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 36, 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 the evening turns to music: Guy Garvey: From The Vaults takes the 8pm hour, Kate Bush: The Timeless Genius holds the 9pm slot, and Bjork: Cornucopia closes out the night at 10:15pm. 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’s evening keeps to a familiar shape: archive drama first, music second. Two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes fill the run-up to primetime, then Guy Garvey: From The Vaults takes the 8pm hour before Kate Bush: The Timeless Genius holds the 9pm slot. Bjork: Cornucopia closes the night at 10:15pm, rounding off an evening built entirely around music documentary and concert film. 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