Launched 27 March 1990 Analogue Marcopolo 1 11.93846 | Slogan The Channel for Living Motto The Channel for Living | |
 | ||
Closed 1 December 1990
(Replaced by Sky News and Sky Arts) Owned by BSB (Later Sky plc)
sister names = The Movie Channel
The Sports Channel
Galaxy
The Power Station
The Computer Channel | ||
Now was a British television channel transmitted as part of the British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) service during 1990.
Contents
History
The Now channel was originally designed to be a live 24 hours news channel similar to Sky News, with most of the content provided by ITN. Between the award of the franchise and the launch the channel, its remit was changed to have lifestyle programmes in the day and current affairs shows evenings. The channel was promoted under the slogan "The Channel For Living". Now was broadcast throughout BSB's short spell on air from March to December 1990 on Marcopolo satellites.
In November 1990, BSB merged with Sky to form British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). BSkyB decided to streamline the channels available on both services. Now was replaced with Sky News, which Sky Television had broadcast on the Astra 1A satellite.
Now ceased broadcasting on Saturday 1 December 1990 at 1am. The ending of Now faded into the clock of Sky News, and the newsreader welcomed those watching on the Marcopolo satellite. As there were still programmes yet to be shown on Now, BSkyB initially broadcast Arts programmes intended for "Now" on weekends, as Sky Arts opted out of the Sky News service on the Marcopolo satellite. Once all shows had been broadcast, Sky Arts closed, and Sky News was broadcast.
Programming
Now featured a mix of talk and chat shows, inspiring documentaries, news, current affairs and arts programming within its schedule. As with all of BSB's other channels, Now carried the compulsory BSB News segment. Some of Now's most memorable programming include "Now Sir Robin" fronted by ex-Question Time presenter Sir Robin Day. The programme featured all of the week's political happenings and confrontations. Now focused heavily upon arts and broadcast a number of theatre and classical music performances during its short lived period on-air. Arts programming was prevalent in the schedule and was featured most nights.