Sky
Sky is a British digital satellite television broadcasting service. Many of its channels broadcast or have broadcasted The Simpsons, perhaps most prominently Sky1, which has aired the show since 1990.
Contents
Sky1
Sky1 is a British television broadcasting channel that broadcasts numerous episodes of The Simpsons every day. Sky1 usually broadcasts episodes ahead of any other British television channel, in some cases years before terrestrial viewers. In October 2011, a Treehouse of Horror marathon aired.
Competitions
During summer 1997, single broadcasts of episodes such as "Lisa the Vegetarian", "Boy-Scoutz 'N the Hood", "Homer's Triple Bypass", "Selma's Choice", "I Love Lisa", "So It's Come to This: A Simpsons Clip Show", "Marge In Chains" and "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)" gave viewers the opportunity to win a cash prize by watching the episode carefully. It is unknown what happened after the showings - presumably a screen appeared asking viewers to phone in the answer to a question.
Sky1 have also run other The Simpsons competitions since, some on their website.
Simpsons Prime
Beginning in 2004, The Simpsons were shown at 8pm on Fridays and Saturdays. To help promote the change, special idents were produced and shown during the timeslots. At least two have been re-discovered - unofficially titled "Explosion" and "Light Bulb".
Official world premiere episode
On March 17, 2009, Sky1 broadcast the season 20 episode "In the Name of the Grandfather" for the first time - five days before its first broadcast in the United States. The episode, on its showing in the United Kingdom, gathered over one million viewers, something of a rarity nowadays. Sky1 has also come close to airing other episodes in a similar way, some episodes broadcasting for their first time on the channel only days after its United States premiere, an example of this being "Judge Me Tender", from 2010, which premiered on Sky1 only three days after its US first-run.
The Simpsons 20th Anniversary
The 20th anniversary of The Simpsons was a big year for Sky1.
Sky1 produced three behind-the-scenes-specials, or documentaries: The Simpsons: Access All Areas, The Simpsons: Mischief & Mayhem and The Simpsons: Celebrity Friends. Each aired on consecutive nights leading up to the Sky1 premiere of season 21 on January 14, 2010. These documentaries were broadcast as part of the 20th anniversary and were all narrated by Ricky Gervais with interviews with cast, crew and guest stars.
Some exclusive interviews aired during advertisement breaks as well. Sky1 also released an ident entitled "Slaughter is the Best Medicine" - most of which featured the comic duo Itchy and Scratchy. This ident was also broadcast on Sky2, with changes so a green "2" was featured instead of the blue "1".
Marcia Wallace death
Following the death of voice actress, Marcia Wallace on October 25, 2013, Sky1 broadcast three of her 'best episodes' from 6:30pm on October 28, 2013. The episodes were as follows: "Bart the Lover", "The Ned-liest Catch" and "Ned 'N' Edna's Blend".
Sky2
Sky2 is a British television broadcasting channel that used to broadcast episodes of The Simpsons. It is a sister channel of Sky1.
Upon the Sky re-brand in 2011, broadcasts of The Simpsons on the channel were extremely scarce.
They held a season 1 marathon on May 8, 2011; no episodes have been aired since then.
The first version of Sky2 (named "Sky 2"), that was on air from September 1, 1996 to August 31, 1997, also aired The Simpsons.
Sky 3D
Sky 3D is Sky's 3D broadcasting station. They broadcast The Longest Daycare on 17 February 2013.
Vans
In deference to the key role The Simpsons plays in defining the Sky brand – and playing a key role in their subscriber stats – thousands of Sky engineer vans across the United Kingdom were plastered with images of the Simpson family throughout the latter half of the 2000s and early 2010s.
