Sky Arts To Broadcast Live From Cheltenham Literature Festival 2019 With Cheltenham Literature Festival Live!

Sky Arts will broadcast live from this year’s The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival bringing viewers all the news and action from the world-famous literary event.  

A Sky original series, Cheltenham Literature Festival Live will see Sky Arts, the only channel in the UK dedicated to arts and culture, broadcast a packed week of dedicated programming from the festival, daily from Monday 7 October-Sunday 13 October between 7pm-10pm. The series will also be available on streaming service Now TV. 

Cheltenham is the world’s oldest literary festival, drawing in leading novelists, poets, comedians, historians, philosophers, actors and politicians from around the world.  Among the names confirmed to take part in this year’s festival are Debbie Harry, Tessa Hadley, Louis Theroux, Helena Bonham-Carter, David Cameron, Richard Ayoade, Candice Carty-Williams, Melvyn Bragg, Celeste Ng, James O'Brien, Lenny Henry, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Malorie Blackman and Cressida Cowell. 

The world’s first literature festival still leads the way in celebrating the written and spoken word, presenting the best new voices in fiction and poetry alongside literary greats and high-profile speakers. It inspires over 9,000 school children who visit the Festival with a love of books, plus thousands more through its year-round education programme.

Sky Arts will be curating dedicated activities within the Sky Arts tent, details of which will be announced soon.

Phil Edgar-Jones, Director of Sky Arts and Sky’s Head of Entertainment, said “The Cheltenham Literature Festival has been celebrating writing and supporting writers for 70 glorious years. Their passion for books and great storytelling is second to none and we are delighted to be bringing the Sky Arts audience the whole festival experience with our unprecedented live coverage. And look out too for a Sky Arts/Cheltenham Book Doctor event in a shopping centre near you - where we’ll match you to the perfect reading list to suit you!”

Cheltenham Live was commissioned by Zai Bennett, Managing Director of Content, Sky UK and Ireland and Phil Edgar-Jones, Director of Entertainment. The series will be made by Storyvault and the commissioning editor for Sky is Bill Hobbins.  The executive producers for Storyvault are   Sam Richards and Danielle Graham.  

It is the latest in a string of recent commissions as Sky continues to invest in original productions. 2019 has been a record year for Sky originals with 19-time Emmy-nominated Chernobyl becoming the most watched original ever with over 4million viewers for the series finale. And away from the screen, Sky secured a record BAFTA haul with seven awards. 

Sky Arts is the UK’s only dedicated channel for the arts. It offers something for everyone, whatever their passion, with entertaining programmes showcasing the best of classical and popular music, theatre, opera, dance and the visual arts, as well as original drama and comedy. Sky Arts is broadcast 24 hours a day and has over 1,000 hours available on catch-up TV, including flagship programmes such as Portrait Artist of The Year, Landscape Artist of the Year and The South Bank Show. 

For further information please contact 

Esther Beaumont - esther.beaumont@premiercomms.com / 0207 292 7396

About Sky

With 24 million customers across seven countries, Sky is Europe’s leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Our 31,000 employees help connect our customers with the very best of Sports, News, the arts and to our own local, original content. Following the success of Sky originals like Chernobyl, Patrick Melrose, Das Boot and Gomorrah we launched Sky Studios and now plan to more than double our investment in original drama and comedy over the next five years. 

Our technology allows customers to watch what they want, when they want, how they want, and as we connect millions of families to content they love, it is our responsibility to do it safely – that’s why we offer services like Sky Broadband Buddy and the Sky Kids app. And our online streaming service, NOW TV, brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service. 

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About NOW TV 

NOW TV is a pick and mix TV streaming service that lets you choose from a range of passes contract free. Available anytime, anywhere in the UK, you can watch through a NOW TV Box or NOW TV Smart Stick, or on the web. The NOW TV app is also available on over 60 devices. 

Whether you’re into big dramas, blockbuster movies, live sports or even just some extra TV for the kids, NOW TV offers four passes which include the latest and best TV and movies: Entertainment, Sky Cinema, Kids and Sky Sports. This includes Sky Atlantic, over 300 Box Sets on demand, all 10 Sky Sports channels and over 1,000 movies – all available with no contract. 

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About Storyvault Films

Storyvault Films is an independent TV production company making a wide range of high-quality factual and factual-entertainment programmes for all the major TV channels in the UK and for international distribution.  Current and recent credits include six series of “Portrait Artist of the Year” and five series of “Landscape Artist of the year” for Sky Arts. Storyvault also produced ART 50 in which Sky Arts commissioned 50 works of art, dance, music and film, all expressing something new about Britain post-Brexit. Other recent shows include the award-winning “The Football Club” for Channel 4, a number of well-reviewed episodes of “Imagine” for BBC 1 and “Vive La Revolution” for BBC 4.  Storyvault’s recent feature “Teddy Pendergrass: If You Don’t Know Me” is in cinemas and available on Sky, Showtime and the BBC. 

About The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival

Cheltenham Literature Festival is part of Cheltenham Festivals - a charity delivering a pioneering year-round educational programme.  Its flagship Reading Teachers = Reading Pupils outreach project is being rolled out nationally this year enabling teachers and their pupils to rediscover the joy of reading. The award-winning Beyond Words is a creative writing project working with vulnerable young people unable to access mainstream education in Gloucestershire. http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/literature