Sky2 is a British television channel originally launched on 2 December 2002 as Sky One Mix. Sky2 is now available on Sky, Virgin Media, Smallworld Cable and TalkTalk TV platforms in the UK. It is also available in the Ireland on the UPC Ireland platform.
Sky 2 was originally a television channel from British Sky Broadcasting, which launched on 1 September 1996 as a sister channel to Sky One, as part of a new bouquet of Sky channels including The Computer Channel and Sky Scottish. For an opening night it held an X-Files theme night. While the channel was still being broadcast, Sky One was branded as "Sky 1". Unlike the later Sky One spin-off, Sky One Mix, the channel showed exclusive first-run television shows rather than the same programming as its parent. Prominent shows on its schedule included Xena: Warrior Princess, Profit, TekWar and Melrose Place.
Sky used the launch of the channel and the rebrand of Sky 1 to introduce Digital On-screen Graphics, on both channels.
While at some points the channel reached viewing figures nearly equal to that of its sister channel (such as for the initial episode of Xena), it was never very successful.[citation needed] It has eventually closed on 1 September 1997.