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

Published: 20 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, Monday 21 September 2026, two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes open the evening at 6pm and 6:30pm, then a Hitchcock double bill holds 7pm and 7:30pm ahead of the concert film Andre Rieu: 70 Years Young at 8pm. Classic FM Live: 25th Anniversary Concert closes out the night at 10:50pm. Full breakdown below.

Sky Arts Schedule: Monday 21 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Monday 21 September 2026, on Freeview 11.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Sky Arts today

A new Opry Live episode opens the overnight run at 12:35am, followed by the concert film Tina Turner: What’s Love Live at 1:35am and the documentary Women Who Rock at 3:45am. Sex Pistols: Classic Albums picks up at 5am, before Classic Quadrophenia fills breakfast from 6am and three Joy Of Painting episodes run from 7:30am.

Two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and two Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes carry mid-morning, then Discovering: Robin Williams holds 11am ahead of The Doors: Classic Albums at midday. Two further Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour fill early afternoon, before Painting Birds With Jim And Nancy Moir and Discovering: Robert De Niro run through to Portrait Artist Of The Year 2025 at 5pm, 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, Monday 21 September 2026.

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

Two more instalments of the twist-ending anthology that made its name adapting Roald Dahl’s short stories open the evening back to back, moving from one dark little tale into the next (series 5, episode 18, then series 6, episode 1).

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

A further pair of archive mystery episodes, each still opening with Hitchcock’s own dry introduction before the story unfolds (series 1, episodes 38 and 39).

Andre Rieu: 70 Years Young — Sky Arts, 8pm

A concert film built from highlights André Rieu picked from his own career, taking in Schönbrunn, Radio City Music Hall and the Coronation Concert in Amsterdam, plus a tour of his home in Maastricht marking his 70th birthday.

Classic FM Live: 25th Anniversary Concert — Sky Arts, 10:50pm

Recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, this concert marks 25 years of Classic FM’s flagship live series, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Mark Wigglesworth and the evening hosted by Dan Walker and Myleene Klass.

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 open the evening at 6pm and 6:30pm, then a Hitchcock double bill holds 7pm and 7:30pm ahead of Andre Rieu: 70 Years Young at 8pm. Classic FM Live: 25th Anniversary Concert closes out 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 follows the channel’s usual archive-drama-then-music shape: two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and a Hitchcock double bill carry the early evening, before Andre Rieu’s birthday concert film takes 8pm and the Classic FM Live anniversary concert closes out the night at 10:50pm. Standard practice for a channel filling twenty-four hours a day on a mix of its own commissions, licensed concert film and archive drama.

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