Sky 5

Sky 5
Country	New Zealand
Programming
Picture format	1080i (HDTV) 16:9
Ownership
Owner	Sky Network Television
History
Launched	3 December 1994; 29 years ago
Former names	Orange, Sky 1, The Box
Links
Website	Official Site
Availability
Streaming media
Sky Go	skygo.co.nz

Sky 5 is a television channel in New Zealand available on Sky.

The channel's shows are a variety of international shows, for example CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, The Simpsons, WWE, The Flash, Supergirl, Arrow, Tour of Duty, Hardcore Pawn and Pawn Stars.

History

The channel was started on 3 December 1994 as Orange on Sky UHF pre-set channel 7. Orange broadcast between 10am and around 11:30pm and during 1995 Juice TV began broadcasting overnight when Orange went off the air. On 1 January 1997, Cartoon Network began broadcasting between 6am and 4pm while Orange was not broadcasting.

Orange changed its name to Sky 1 on 1 June 1998 and introduced overnight programming, with The Simpsons debuting on 7 July 1998 with the first ever episode. The channel began broadcasting 24 hours a day on 1 January 1999 when the Sky Digital service was launched; however, the UHF channel continued to screen Cartoon Network between 6am-4pm and in 2000 this was replaced with Nickelodeon.

In 2005, Sky Network Television considered unencrypting Sky 1 to make it a free-to-air channel, but decided instead to purchase the existing network, Prime.

Sky 1 relaunched on 1 February 2008 and in the process its name was changed to The Box.

On 2 February 2018, 10 years after the channel relaunched as The Box, it rebranded for the third time in its history, as Sky 5.