Now

Now was a British television channel transmitted as part of the British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) service during 1990.

History
The Now channel was originally design to be a live 24 hours news channel smiler to Sky news, with majortay of the content provide by ITN. Between the period of being awarded the franchise and it launch the channel, remit was change to have programme Lifystyle programmes during the day and current affairs show during the evening. 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 the 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. The decision was taken to replace Now 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 was 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 a weekend when Sky Arts opted out of the Sky News service on the Marcopolo satellite. Once all shows had been broadcast Sky Arts closed.

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 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 featured most nights.