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| The Comedy Channel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Launched | 1 October 1991 |
| Closed | 30 September 1992 |
| Owned by | British Sky Broadcasting |
| Country |  |
| Replaced by | Sky Movies Gold |
The Comedy Channel was a short-lived United Kingdom subscription television channel during the early 1990s.
The channel launched on 1 October 1991, [1] soon after the merger of Sky Television plc and British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). The merged company, British Sky Broadcasting, brought together comedy programming from its existing libraries – Sky having an archive of US imports including Three's Company , I Love Lucy , Green Acres , The Beverly Hillbillies and Seinfeld , and BSB having obtained rights to a number of BBC sitcoms such as Dad's Army and The Goodies .
The Comedy Channel existed in the days before the basic "Sky Multichannels" subscription package, [ citation needed ] so was made available as a premium service to subscribers of either Sky Movies or The Movie Channel. [ citation needed ] Listings for the channel were carried in the Radio Times [2] and other listings magazines.
The channel [ when? ] eventually lost the broadcast rights to the BBC shows following the expiry of the contract between the BBC and former BSB. [ citation needed ] Eventually the channel closed on 30 September 1992, to be replaced by a "classic movies" channel, Sky Movies Gold. [ citation needed ] Following the termination of the contract with Sky, the BBC's archive programming was subsequently used to launch UK Gold on satellite and cable in November of 1992.
In January 2020, 27 years after the closure of The Comedy Channel, Sky regained a wholly-owned comedy-focused station with the opening of Sky Comedy, though whereas the 1990s channel was based principally around archive UK and US comedies, the new 2020 station will focus primarily on contemporary American comedy. Sky has also been a part-owner of Comedy Central in the UK since its launch (as The Paramount Channel) in 1995, through its minority holding in the Paramount UK Partnership, which is majority-owned by CC parent ViacomCBS' European arm.
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