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.
