topic Re: Sky Soap in What's On

Sky Soap

zombyzooie — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:14:22 GMT

Please bring Sky Soap back in full HD. Im watching Emmerdale Farm on Youtube and will be better to watch in HD as well as other soaps. Ok youll say well a blind man will be greatful to watch it. Well the blind man can also be aswell to hear it in good quality. Please bring Sky Soap back in HD.

Re: Sky Soap

Annie+UK — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:24:16 GMT

Old soaps were not recorded in HD and lots were in 4:3

Anyhow you could email your request to viewerR@sky.uk (Viewer Relations Team)

Re: Sky Soap

Daniel0210 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:24:16 GMT

@zombyzooie

I've never heard of Sky Soap. Having searched for it I see it was closed in 1999, so it's highly unlikely Sky will bring it back after 27 years let alone in HD.

Re: Sky Soap

GD1 — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 19:26:16 GMT

@Daniel0210 wrote:

@zombyzooie

I've never heard of Sky Soap. Having searched for it I see it was closed in 1999, so it's highly unlikely Sky will bring it back after 27 years let alone in HD.

On Sky Analogue 19E Part time channel shared a transponder with another 2 channels I believe.

Re: Sky Soap

TimmyBGood — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:56:08 GMT

@Daniel0210 wrote:

@zombyzooie

I've never heard of Sky Soap. Having searched for it I see it was closed in 1999, so it's highly unlikely Sky will bring it back after 27 years let alone in HD.

The Sky+ HD platform wasn't released until 2006

Digital Spy says Emmerdale was supposed to begin HD capture in early 2008

https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/emmerdale/a90120/emmerdale-to-be-filmed-in-hd-from-april/

but apparently didn't actually get broadcast in HD until late 2011

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 17:00:18 GMT

I'd be delighted if sky soap came back then I'd be able to watch things I've missed from

the beginning they brought back Disney so anything is possible with Sky keep this thread going and hopefully one day I'll get the channel I've wanted on Sky for ages

Re: Sky Soap

RobertS83 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:00:19 GMT

Sky one came back so you never know what the future holds.

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:05:13 GMT

@RobertS83 Definitely let's keep everything crossed

Re: Sky Soap

MarkGoldsmith — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:29:38 GMT

@RobertS83 wrote:
Sky one came back so you never know what the future holds.

I guess it's slightly different with Sky One though, as all that has been is essentially a rebranding of Sky Showcase back to Sky One, showing the exact same type of programming.

For Sky Soaps to be brought back, Sky would need to obtain the rights to all these old soaps to broadcast them, which I'm assuming wouldn't be easy or necessarily cost-effective given the money they would make from launching a new channel.

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 10:44:40 GMT

@MarkGoldsmith Would be lovely for them to be back as I've missed heaps from the beginning and as a sky advisor said to me it is about giving the customers what they want

Re: Sky Soap

RobertS83 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:00:49 GMT

They could possibly do a deal with BBC Studios and ITV respectively for old EastEnders and Coronation Street from the 1980s and Emmerdale episodes from the 1970s to start again as they were last shown about 10 years ago on U&Drama and ITV3.

Look at the demand for old retro shows from the success of That's TV, Rewind TV and Talking Pictures etc.

Re: Sky Soap

Angel_Aka — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:19:18 GMT

I would think this would be very unlikely to happen.

At best you can maybe hope for a live Classic Corrie or Classic Emmerdale live stream FAST channel on the ITVX app. The BBC may do similar if they begin offering a paid-for 'archive' subscription tier to iPlayer in the future.

The key issue is payment for the actors in these soaps. Unless their contracts specifically mentioned no repeats fees, then any future broadcast of the episodes they appear in would mean the original broadcaster having to pay what could amount to quite a significant amount of money to every actor featured. If you consider the number of episodes of these soaps, it could very quickly mount up... and it simply isn't worthwhile.

Re: Sky Soap

RobertS83 — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:22:07 GMT

FAST channels may be the way to go, possibly on the Xumo play app too.

Separately, bit disappointed that Xumo play wasn't rolled out to further devices in the UK as of yet.

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:28:13 GMT

@Angel_Aka @RobertS83 But if they were a fast channel I'd still miss them when they were on live as they wouldn't say in tv mag when on

Re: Sky Soap

nolte — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:13:24 GMT

@RobertS83 wrote:

Look at the demand for old retro shows from the success of That's TV, Rewind TV and Talking Pictures etc.

Maybe then the people to contact for this would be Talking Pictures, Rewind TV, and That's Tv as they are in the market for this content.

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 12:26:44 GMT

@nolte Great idea

Re: Sky Soap

Mr+Ripley — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:06:36 GMT

@Yoghurt How about Classic Coronation Street & Classic Emmerdale on ITV 3 in the afternoons? Are they of any use to you?

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:55:33 GMT

@Mr+Ripley Missed them from the beginning so looking to start again

Re: Sky Soap

lettice — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:20:49 GMT

@Yoghurt wrote:

@Mr+Ripley Missed them from the beginning so looking to start again

If you do a manual or voice search for Classic Coronation Street or Classic Emerdale on Sky Stream, would be the same for Sky Glass, it brings up series all the way back to 1960 and 1972, respectively.

They link to ITVx or if you have caught up would show to play live or within on this week.

Add to playlist and you can then work your way through them and assume one day catch up with the current broadcast of where the classic series is at today.

I did this some time back with Classic Eastenders from 1985 and have caught up and watching during the week the current classic ones, 2010, on U.

Being U as it does for some content, it plays straight up, so need to launch into the U app.

It works so well with the playlist for this type of thing. have had no issues of it at all, and your next episode or episodes are ready in line to play and if your part way through an episode it will be there within your continue watching.

Re: Sky Soap

Yoghurt — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:43:15 GMT

@lettice No use as there's not each episode from each series there's bound to have been more than one episode in the first series of emmerdale