When people think of Sky they tend to think of sport and films, and of advertising that must cost a fortune. In fact Sky is one of the more flexible places to advertise, and it has made television a realistic option for a lot of smaller businesses. That’s because what Sky sells is airtime across a very long list of channels, together with a way of choosing which homes see your advert, and once you’ve understood those two things it’s much easier to see where your own business might fit.
More than Sky’s own channels
Sky’s advertising is sold by Sky Media, and as well as Sky’s own channels, such as Sky News, Sky Sports and Sky Atlantic, it sells the airtime on a long list of channels owned by other companies. Sky Media says it covers more than 130 channels between them.
That includes the Discovery family of channels, such as Quest, Really, TLC and Food Network, along with TNT Sports. It also currently includes 5 and its sister channels, although that’s due to move to Channel 4’s sales team from 2027, as we’ve explained in how to advertise on Channel 5.
So a campaign “on Sky” can mean a great many different channels, chosen to suit the audience you’re after, and they aren’t all watched through a Sky box. Several of them, including Sky News, Sky Arts, Quest and Really, are free to watch on Freeview, which means the audience is wider than Sky’s own subscribers.
Many smaller audiences, chosen by interest
The length of that list is what sets Sky apart from ITV or Channel 4. Each of those has a main channel that gathers a very large and mixed audience, and much of the skill in buying them lies in picking the right programmes. Across most of the channels Sky sells, the audiences are smaller and far more specialised, because a channel devoted to food, or history, or golf attracts people by what they’re interested in. Planning a campaign there is a little like choosing a handful of specialist magazines instead of a national newspaper.
If you sell golfing holidays, or cookware for keen home cooks, that suits you very well. There are channels where a large share of the people watching are your kind of customer, so you can concentrate your budget on those and leave the rest of television alone. Because each audience is a modest one, a campaign is built up from a large number of showings spread across the weeks, and the same viewers tend to see the advert several times, which is what an unfamiliar name needs. It’s also why these channels have long been popular with advertisers who want viewers to phone or go online straight away, which the trade calls direct response advertising.
That’s a different job from making a whole region aware of you in a short space of time. If that’s what you’re after, one of the big free-to-air channels will usually get you there faster, which is where buying ITV by region comes in, and plenty of campaigns use some of each.
Two ways to buy
Whichever channels suit you, there are two ways of buying them. The first is the traditional way, in which you choose the channels and the kinds of programme, and your advert runs in the breaks for everybody watching.
The second is AdSmart, which is the one that opened television up to smaller businesses. With AdSmart, different households watching the same programme can be shown different adverts. You choose the households you want, by things like where they live and the kind of household they are, and only they see your advert. It works in homes with Sky and Virgin Media.
For a local business that’s a big deal, because you can advertise to the postcodes you actually serve. A dental practice has no use for viewers forty miles away, and with AdSmart it isn’t asked to pay for them. Our full guide to AdSmart from Sky covers who you can choose, how it’s paid for and what a campaign is like once it’s running, and there’s more about choosing your area in local TV advertising by postcode.
Sport and sponsorship
Sky Sports is the reason a lot of people have Sky, and there are ways of advertising around particular events and competitions as well as in the general run of programmes. Live sport is some of the most valued airtime in television, because it’s watched as it happens by people who are paying close attention, and Sky Sports has separate channels for football, cricket, golf and Formula 1, so a campaign can follow one kind of fan. The headline fixtures are the most sought-after of all, but a season is a long one, and there’s a great deal of sport either side of them that reaches the same supporters.
Sky also offers programme sponsorship, where your name is attached to a show or a strand of programmes and appears alongside it week after week, which is a different thing from buying a place in the break. We’ve explained how that works in TV sponsorship explained.
What it costs
As with all television, there’s no fixed price list, because the cost depends on the channels, the audience and the time of year, and with AdSmart it also depends on how many households you want to reach and how tightly you define them. Our media buying partners will get you real figures for your own area.
What’s changing
Two things are due to change the list of channels that Sky sells. The first is 5 moving to Channel 4’s sales team from 2027, which we mentioned earlier. The second is much bigger, because in July 2026 Sky agreed to buy ITV’s channels and ITVX. The deal still needs approval and isn’t expected to be completed until 2027, but it could change how both are bought. We’ve set out what’s known in Sky is buying ITV: what could it mean for advertisers? Neither is a reason to wait, because an advert that’s been made and cleared for Sky today can run wherever the airtime ends up being sold.
Getting your advert onto Sky
Whichever way the airtime is bought, the advert has to be made to broadcast standard, which means the picture, the sound and the file all have to meet the broadcaster’s technical requirements. Every advert also has to be cleared before it goes on air, as we’ve explained in our guide to Clearcast, and the airtime is usually booked some weeks ahead, so it helps to leave yourself time.
With so many channels and two different ways of buying, most advertisers find it easier to have somebody plan it for them, and there’s more about that in why use a media buyer? For our clients, we make the advert, get it cleared and deliver it to Sky, and our media buying partners plan and book the airtime, looking at Sky alongside ITV, Channel 4 and the streaming services.
If you’d like to know what a Sky campaign in your area might involve, get in touch. If you’d sooner see an idea first, ask us for a free storyboard and we’ll show you what your advert could look like.