British Sky Broadcasting - renamed in 2014 to Sky UK Ltd. - is a British-based television, broadband and landline phone network. It was formed in 1990 by the merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting.
Sky's main business in Britain is in its network of digital television channels. Sky currently operates over a dozen channels, including news, sports, general entertainment and game shows.
Sky's flagship channel is Sky 1, a general entertainment channel. Most of the programming consists of American imports; Sky 1 was the original UK home for a number of very popular series, including 'The Simpsons', 'Lost', 'Battlestar Galactica', 'Bones', '24', 'Prison Break' and 'House'.
Sky 1 has also shown some original programming commissioned by Sky. Sitcoms 'The Strangerers' and 'Time Gentlemen Please' were early attempts, along with a soccer based drama called 'Dream Team'. More recently, starting with 'Hogfather', Sky has adapted four of Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' series of fantasy books; these have proved to be a success with both critics and audiences. Since 2010 Sky have commissioned and broadcast a slew of new comedy shows, including Ricky Gervais' 'An Idiot Abroad', 'Trollied', 'Starlings', 'Moone Boy', 'The Kumars' (a continuation of a successful BBC comedy) and panel game 'Duck Quacks Don't Echo'.
The Sky Sports channels have UK rights to a number of popular sports. Sky shows Premier League soccer, other European soccer, international cricket, rugby and Formula 1 motorsport.
The Sky News channel provides a 24-hour national and international news service.
