Sky Arts: New look. New faces. New home.

Where else but Sky Arts might you one minute be deciding how best to stage an opera in 3D, and the next be selecting the best summer festivals to cover? And where else but on Sky Arts might you find Steve Coogan, Johnny Vegas and Ronnie Wood side by side with Alfie Boe, Emma Thompson, Pina Bausch and Paul O’Grady? As with The South Bank Sky Arts Awards, one of the flagship shows we’ll be bringing back for 2012, Sky Arts brings the best of all the arts together, in one place, no matter what you enjoy.

From the small yet perfectly formed Artsworld of 2003 to Sky’s acquisition in 2005, none of us could have imagined that Sky Arts would grow to four channels, broadcasting 48 hours of quality arts programmes a day. We certainly wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told us that one day we’d have been responsible for bringing live theatre back to television for the first time in 30 years, broadcasting all 2,400 hours of Antony Gormley’s One & Other live from the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square; selling out in cinemas across the country with our ground-breaking coverage of the first night of the Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery and world first, live 3D broadcasts of opera, dance and music festivals - not to mention partnering with over 50 regional organisations across the country to bring arts to more people across the UK and Ireland.

It’s been an incredible few years for us but it’s time to go to the next level. Sky Arts is moving on up, both literally and figuratively, and we’re even more excited about what the next few years hold.

In our new home on channels 129 and 130, we’re conscious that we have to offer even more of the best of arts, culture and entertainment from across the world. And that starts right here with Playhouse Presents..., a 12-part series of exclusive new plays from some of the most talented writers from stage and screen, and with all-star casts including double Oscar® winner Emma Thompson, Alison Steadman, Brenda Blethyn, Harry Shearer as President Nixon and Sir Tom Jones in his debut acting role. Playhouse Presents... will, we have no doubt, knock your socks off. Take a sneak peek in the video above.

And that’s just the start. This year, we’ll welcome more of Britain’s leading personalities and talents to Sky Arts: a new show with Ronnie Wood, featuring guests such as Mark Ronson and Alice Cooper, and Michael Parkinson’s Masterclasses will join our incredibly well-respected and established line-up of Mariella Frostrup’s The Book Show, Melvyn Bragg, and the return of The South Bank Show and The South Bank Sky Arts Awards, Jo Whiley’s critically acclaimed music show and Tim Marlow’s ever fascinating insights into the biggest exhibitions of the year.

We’ve made a name for ourselves with some of our returning series, such as First Love, The Jo Whiley Show and In Confidence, which The Sunday Times called “the finest talk show on television”. These will all be back for 2012, alongside brand new seasons harnessing the talents of Britain’s greatest writers and directors.

But it doesn’t stop there. We’re looking further afield, too, and we’ve got knockout drama from across the world coming to Sky Arts in 2012. The critically acclaimed In Treatment, with Gabriel Byrne, premiered on Sky Arts back in 2009 – in 2012, we’re bringing the original Israeli version BeTipul to customers. Look out for that, and another Israeli drama, Prisoners of War, in the coming months. We’ll also continue to bring customers the best music and performances – be it concerts from The Who or the latest from the New York Metropolitan Opera, we’ll have them all.

And that’s just on screen – we’ve also got big, bold and brilliant plans for what Sky Arts does off it and what we’re doing to take the arts to more people across the UK. The Sky Arts Ignition Series, where we’ve pledged over £1million to arts organisations and up-and-coming artists to fund new works of art, is one of the most exciting things we’ve ever done, and 2012 will see the first Ignition project take shape.

Sky Arts is about passion from start to finish, whether it’s our team who care fiercely about what they do or our customers who love finding content that they can’t get anywhere else. We’ll continue to stay true to that in 2012.