The channel launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 17: 30 as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989.

Sky News had had a free hand with domestic news for over eight years ( since 5 February 1989 ) and being owned by News International their papers were used to criticise the BBC for extending its news output.

Sky News objected to the breaking of its monopoly, complaining about the costs associated with running a channel that only a minority could view from the licence fee.

However, in September 1999 the European Commission ruled against a complaint made by Sky News that the publicly funded channel was unfair and illegal under EU law.

The introduction of simulcasts of the main bulletins on the channel was to allow the news bulletins to pool resources rather than work against each other at key times in the face of competition particularly from Sky News.

The 2004 report claimed that the channel outperformed Sky News in both weekly and monthly reach in multichannel homes for the January 2004 period, and for the first time in two years moved ahead of Sky News in being perceived as the channel best for news.

A key claim made by Lord Lambert in his report had been that the channel was slower to react to breaking news compared with its main rival Sky News.

The Lambert Report into the channel's performance in 2002 called upon News 24 to develop a better brand of its own, to allow viewers to differentiate between itself and similar channels such as Sky News.

* Sky News

BFBS TV1, BFBSTV2, BFBSTV Kids and Sky TV News for non-military.

Sky News Australia is Fox's sister channel.

FNC is carried in the Republic of Ireland by the British Sky Broadcasting ( BSkyB ) satellite-television network ( Sky ), which is 40-percent owned by FNC's parent ( News Corporation ).

It was completed in 2010 and claimed the title from the previous record holder, Sky Plaza in Leeds which stands just two metres lower.

He was subsequently interviewed by Sky News, in which he appeared drunk although in his book he claimed it was due to his poor mental state, tiredness and prescribed medication which gave the impression of appearing " out of it ".

Sky claimed that the move back to pay TV allowed them to improve the channel through increased editoral investment.

This figure fell significantly short of the claimed potential subscriber numbers of 650, 000 as set out in the original Freeview Plus proposal document, however this is due to the differing market in 2004 and increasing temptation from Sky, who acquired ITV Digital's customer details and Cable TV companies.

The Indians claimed that the mass had fallen from the sky in a place they called Piguem Nonralta which the Spanish translated as Campo del Cielo (" Field of the Sky ").

Scripts for the first stories are often credited to Dick and Dave Wood, two brothers who also wrote other Kirby-illustrated material, such as the " Sky Masters of the Space Force " comic strip ; but others have claimed that Kirby created the Challengers himself or together with former partner Joe Simon.

Jeep claimed that the idea behind the Sky Slider was to give consumers the open-air feeling from previous Jeep models while maintaining the rigidity and safety of a sturdy frame.

While appearing as a guest on Sky Sports Champions League coverage on 7 December 2010, Wilkins claimed that Chelsea still have not given him a reason for his sacking.

Chelsea played a tough defensive battle and Mikel was hailed by Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp as playing an excellent game putting in " in a performance that I didn't think he had in him ; he was putting out fires everywhere ," as Chelsea claimed a 4 – 3 victory in the penalty shootout.

" Sky Blue " is a track Gabriel claimed to have been working on for 10 years before finishing it.

Another piece of claimed evidence drawn from Google Sky is the carbon star CW Leonis, which is the brightest object in the 10 μm infrared sky and is frequently claimed to be Nibiru.

Hanging Cloud ( Ojibwa name Ah-shah-way-gee-she-go-qua ( Aazhawigiizhigokwe in the contemporary spelling ), meaning " Goes Across the Sky Woman ") was an Ojibwa woman who was a full warrior ( ogichidaakwe in Ojibwe ) among her people, and claimed by the Wisconsin Historical Society as the only woman to ever become one.

In 1982 Uli Jon Roth developed the " Sky Guitar ," with a vastly extended number of frets, which was the first guitar to venture into the upper registers of the violin.

* In the 2012 movie Iron Sky, the number 1138 is written on the Moon Nazi helmet at the ending by the character Renate.

Other notables included Karl Urban in a variety of roles such as Cupid and Caesar, Hudson Leick as Xena's nemesis Callisto ( Leick also played a body-switched Xena in the episode Intimate Stranger ), Claire Stansfield as the evil shamaness Alti ; and a number of trusted friends – Jennifer Sky as feisty sidekick Amarice, Bruce Campbell as Autolycus King of Thieves, Robert Trebor as dodgy entrepreneur Salmoneus, William Gregory Lee as the warrior-poet Virgil and Tim Omundson as the spiritual healer Eli.

A large amount of channels are operated by BSkyB whose channels include Sky1, Sky Living and Sky Atlantic, and UKTV who operate a number of channels including Dave, Gold, Watch and Yesterday.

The song's meter allows it to be sung to a number of popular tunes including: " Amazing Grace "; " Greensleeves "; " The House of the Rising Sun "; " The Rising of the Moon / Wearing of the Green "; Beethoven's " Ode to Joy " ( in his Ninth Symphony, fourth movement ); " Oh My Darling, Clementine "; " Semper Paratus "; " The Marine Corps Hymn "; " The Yellow Rose of Texas "; " I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing "; " Ghost Riders in the Sky "; " Acres of Clams ", and the theme song from the TV show Gilligan's Island.

Most of these channels are included within the Sky EPG, and an increasing number within the Freesat EPG.

Hayward's " Voices in the Sky " charted as a single in the UK ( No. 27 ), as did Lodge's " Ride My See-Saw " ( No. 42, No. 15 in France ) – still their concert finale number today – which featured Pinder's non-album song " A Simple Game " as ' B ' side.

The transmissions, on 11. 680 GHz ( Vertical polarity, FEC 2 / 3, S / R 27. 5MBaud ), currently appear only by adding the channel manually on Sky Digital equipment, and the channel is currently recognised by a code number, “ 51108 ”.

Big Sky Chapel serves a number of religious denominations.

The International Astronomical Union celebrated the 50th anniversary of the show by naming asteroid 57424 Caelumnoctu ( the number referring to the first broadcast date and the name being Latin for " The Sky at Night ").

Aside from presenting The Sky at Night, Moore has appeared in a number of other television and radio shows, including Just a Minute and, from 1992 until 1998, playing the role of GamesMaster in the television show of the same name: a character who professed to know everything there is to know about video gaming.

Pebble in the Sky was also included in a number of omnibuses: first in 1952 in Triangle along with the others in the Empire series ( The Stars, Like Dust and The Currents of Space which had only been published earlier that year ), in 1978 in The Far Ends of Time and Earth along with The End of Eternity and the short story collection Earth Is Room Enough, and again with the Empire series novels in 2002 as The Empire Novels.

Between 1996 and 2003, Carlton owned a number of extra channels, carried initially on analogue cable, and also later on their flagship platform, ONdigital too, although none of them ever made it onto Sky Digital.

On Sky Digital Look North for Goole news is on EPG number 977 whilst the main BBC One Look North ( 101 ) is mainly the West Yorkshire Edition.

She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky ( also 1943 ), but was never featured in a leading role because of her race and the fact that films featuring her had to be re-edited for showing in states where theaters could not show films with black performers.

As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline ; a notable exception was the all-black musical Cabin in the Sky, although one number was cut because it was considered too suggestive by the censors.

The Sky Tower features prominently on the Auckland skyline at night due to its extensive illumination and SkyCity uses this lighting of the tower to promote various causes using a number of colours or mix of colours.

During installation the engineer will initiate a ' callback ' from the STB to Sky via modem and telephone line, transmitting details of the viewing card number and the box in which it is installed.

Key selling points were the improvement in picture and sound quality, increased number of channels and an interactive service branded Open .... now called Sky Active, Sky competed with the ONdigital ( later ITV Digital ) terrestrial offering.

It coincided with a number of changes to the Sky network that day.

The channel among other things incorporated a large number of American imports in its schedules, and also increased the quantity produced of home grown programmes, including Sky Trax which covered European music, and children's programmes like Fun Factory and The DJ Kat Show, many of which came not only from Sky's own studios in London ( having already abandoned the Molinare facilities by then ), but also included programmes produced in the Netherlands by John de Mol's production company.