What channel is BBC1 on? 1 or 101?
If it is 101 then you ahould have a standard Infra-Red remote that should work with most video senders.
You mention you had a sender with Sky, it is not one of the ones that sends the information back down the RF cable (like
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=36559)?Those will not work with anything other than a Sky Digibox.