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

Published: 22 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, Wednesday 23 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 a single long documentary, The Michelangelo Code: Secrets of the Sistine Chapel, running from 8pm to 10:20pm. Two Beyond The Brush episodes follow, and Art’s Most Erotic closes out the night at 11:20pm. Full breakdown below.

Sky Arts Schedule: Wednesday 23 September 2026 (Full Listings)

Here is the complete Sky Arts schedule for Wednesday 23 September 2026, on Freeview 11.

Overnight

Breakfast

Morning

Afternoon

Early evening

Primetime

Late night

What’s on Sky Arts today

Backstage: Ralph Fiennes In Straight Line Crazy opens the overnight run at 12:35am, followed by Discovering: Ralph Fiennes at 1:35am and In London: David Hockney at 2:35am. The Art Of The Garden holds 4:05am ahead of Painting Birds With Jim And Nancy Moir at 5am, before the documentary Jacqueline Du Pre: Genius And Tragedy fills breakfast from 6am and two Joy Of Painting episodes run from 7:55am.

Two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and a Hitchcock Presents double bill carry mid-morning, then Discovering: Alain Delon holds 11am ahead of Deep Purple: 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: Maggie Smith 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, Wednesday 23 September 2026.

Tales Of The Unexpected — Sky Arts, 6pm

Tales Of The Unexpected (series 6, episode 4) opens the evening with another of the anthology’s twist-ending short stories.

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

A second instalment, Tales Of The Unexpected (series 6, episode 5), follows straight after at 6:30pm.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Sky Arts, 7pm

The evening moves to the other archive anthology strand at 7pm with Alfred Hitchcock Presents (series 2, episode 3), one of the director’s half-hour suspense tales.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Sky Arts, 7:30pm

Alfred Hitchcock Presents (series 2, episode 4) rounds off the pair at 7:30pm, ahead of the night’s main documentary.

The Michelangelo Code: Secrets of the Sistine Chapel — Sky Arts, 8pm

Sky Arts hands over more than two hours to a single film tonight: The Michelangelo Code: Secrets of the Sistine Chapel, running from 8pm to 10:20pm, an investigation into the hidden meanings said to be built into the ceiling frescoes.

Beyond The Brush — Sky Arts, 10:20pm

Beyond The Brush (series 1, episode 5) follows the documentary at 10:20pm, part of the strand profiling working artists.

Beyond The Brush — Sky Arts, 10:50pm

A second Beyond The Brush (series 1, episode 6) airs straight after at 10:50pm.

Art’s Most Erotic — Sky Arts, 11:20pm

Art’s Most Erotic (series 1, episode 1) closes the night at 11:20pm, a look at the more provocative corners of art history.

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 The Michelangelo Code: Secrets of the Sistine Chapel, a single documentary running from 8pm to 10:20pm. Two Beyond The Brush episodes follow, and Art’s Most Erotic closes out the night at 11:20pm. 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-documentary shape: two Tales Of The Unexpected episodes and a Hitchcock double bill carry the early evening, before a single feature-length documentary on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling takes the whole 8pm-to-10:20pm slot, rather than the usual hour. Two Beyond The Brush episodes and Art’s Most Erotic close out the night by 11:20pm. 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