Sky News Australia


Sky News Australia is an Australian 24-hour cable and satellite news channel available on the Foxtel and Optus Television subscription platforms. It is also available in New Zealand on Sky Television and Vodafone.
Sky News Australia launched at 5pm on 19 February 1996, as the first Australian-produced television news channel. The channel aired its 50,000th unique newscast on 23 April 1996 at 11am. Sky News was added to Austar on 1 April 2000. In 2004, Sky News began broadcasting Sky News Active, its on-demand interactive TV news service. In 2008, Sky News launched the Sky News Business Channel, and on 20 January 2009, Sky News launched Australian Public Affairs Channel. It began widescreen broadcasting on 17 May 2009. Sky News Australia began broadcasting in high definition on 1 December 2015. A fourth spin-off channel, Sky News Election Channel, was launched on 1 May 2016. In July 2017, Sky News became provider of Fox Sports News with a mix of presenters and reporters from both organisations combining for 20 hours of live content per day on channel 500; sports updates on Sky News programs are introduced as "Fox Sports News Updates".
In May 2018, Sky News Live moved to channel 600 and added a simulcast on channel 103, while its multiview service closed and moved some of its overflow channels to an online portal. The flagship British Sky News channel also launched on Foxtel as Sky News UK, and A-PAC rebranded as Sky News Extra.

Corporate history

Sky News Channel's parent company, Australian News Channel, was owned equally by British Sky Broadcasting, Seven Media Group and Nine Entertainment Co., each with a 33% stake in the company from its founding until December 2016, when it was acquired by News Corp Australia. The carriage deal between Australian News Channel and Foxtel is due to expire in 2017, reported as either February or December.
In 2013, Sky News Australia was granted 20 million in funding from its parent company to be used over three years.
Until 2015, Sky News was responsible for producing New Zealand's Prime News - First at 5:30 from Sydney, hosted by Eric Young with filming taking place in Prime's Albany studios. It lost the contract to MediaWorks and subsequently ceased broadcasting a local New Zealand bulletin.
In February 2018, Sky News Australia launched a digital-first brand and content platform called 2600. The online political newsletter is sent out daily with breaking news from Canberra.

Programming

Sky News programming consists of a mix of live news bulletins, live broadcasts from events, original commentary panel programs and simulcasts of international sister station Sky News UK. Sky News has broadcast every sitting of Question time from the House of Representatives since its launch in 1996.
Sky News Australia increased its primetime programming offerings, particularly its political themed shows, significantly in 2013, when it made more obvious its right leaning ideology, ahead of the 2013 federal election, canceling almost entirely the slot's rolling news block News Night. It would then regain most of its runtime in 2014. Sky News Australia rebranded on 19 January 2015 as "Sky News Live", dropping the "Sky News National" branding.
On weekdays, throughout most of the day, rolling news coverage is presented from one of Sky News Australia's studios. From 4pm, commentary programs begin, and continue through primetime until 11pm AEST/AEDT. Most of these programs are presesented by conservative commentators discussing the news of the day, often with a panel of other commentators, and feature a news update at the beginning of the program. This but opinion shows. continues from 11pm AEST/AEDT before coverage switches to an overnight simulcast of Sky News UK at 1am AEST/AEDT.gy.
In 2007, Sky News aired local breakaway programming for New Zealand viewers in primetime, filmed at Prime NZ's Auckland studios. One of these programs, Prime News - First at 5:30, was also simulcast to Australian viewers. The debut of Sky News NZ Evening News was watched by just 1,500 viewers and panned by critics. As of 2015, no local New Zealand programs are produced or broadcast following the loss of a production contract with Prime NZ. However the channel debuted New Zealand Agenda on 16 June 2018, hosted by New Zealand bureau chief James O'Doherty from Wellington, New Zealand, focusing on NZ politics.

Current programs

News presenters

Sky News Australia has a bureau in every capital city in Australia, completing this with the opening of its Hobart studio in 2013. In 2016, it opened a bureau in Cairns, making it the first non-capital city bureau. In 2017, a Gold Coast bureau was opened marking the third non-capital city studio after Cairns and Geelong.
The base of Sky News Australia is in the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Park, from which the majority of its news and programming is broadcast. Its Melbourne studio was upgraded in 2014, allowing it to be used as a secondary broadcast studio. Hinch Live became the first regular program to be broadcast from Melbourne. Ahron Young is the Melbourne Bureau Chief.
The third major bureau is in Parliament House, Canberra, opened in 2000. Lyndal Curtis became Bureau Chief of in October 2015. Additionally, Sky News has a small office in the Channel Seven building in Martin Place, which includes a small street-level single camera studio which looks onto Elizabeth Street, Sydney.
Internationally, Sky News's only foreign bureau is in Wellington, New Zealand, opened in 2015.

Resources

Apart from its own resources, Sky News Australia uses the news resources of its former parent companies Seven News, Nine News and Sky News UK, as well as sister network Fox News Channel. It signed a four-year partnership deal with CNN International, commencing on 1 January 2011, and additionally has agreements with CCTV China, ABC America, CBS, Reuters, APTN, Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Newshub. Sky News UK, ABC and CBS were founding international partners of Sky News Australia.

Reception

Ratings

The highest rating broadcast on Sky News Australia was an episode of Paul Murray Live on 26 June 2013, averaging 197,000 viewers across a special two-hour broadcast. The highest audience share Sky News Australia has achieved was during coverage of the 2009 Victorian bushfires.
On 15 December 2014 during the Sydney Lindt cafe siege, coverage of the unfolding incident took 16 of the 20 most watched programs on the Foxtel platform. The 7pm hour was the highest rated at 109,000 viewers. Sky News achieved a day time share of 2.6% and a primetime share of 1.5%.
Sky News Live rated 56,000 viewers for early evening coverage of the 2015 Queensland state election, and 83,000 viewers for later coverage, beaten by ABC News 24's coverage which was watched by 195,000 viewers nationally. For its coverage of the failed Liberal leadership spill on 9 February 2015 between 9am and 10am, Sky News Live was the second most watched subscription channel and the coverage was the third most watched program of the day with 69,000 viewers.
Sky News Live reached a total audience of 700,000 viewers on 14 September 2015 during the 2015 Liberal leadership spill. It was the most watched subscription television channel for the evening and outrated all free-to-air television channels between 11pm and midnight AEST. The highest rated hour of coverage was from 10pm, achieving 190,000 viewers, the second highest ratings since the 2013 Labor Party spill.
A March 2016 article in The Guardian Australia reported Sky News averages 12,000 national viewers between 6pm and midnight, with a peak of 18,000 between 8pm and 10pm, although the report did not specify what days or dates this average refers to.
During the 2016 federal election, Sky News averaged 96,000 viewers, an increase of 46% from the 2013 election.
In July 2018, Sky News claimed to have achieved its highest ratings on record, with viewership up 9% overall and its weeknight primetime viewership 25% higher on the same period last year, according to OzTAM figures.
In August 2018, coverage of the Liberal Party of Australia leadership spill, 2018 saw Sky News gain its highest Tuesday primetime audience ever with a 4.2% audience share. Speers, Credlin and Jones & Co all had their highest-rated episodes on record.

Criticism and controversies

Sky News has been described as having a "split personality," running straight news bulletins and reporting during the day with professional and independent journalists and presenters, while moving towards "right-leaning punditry" in prime time. Drawing some comparison to Fox News, the network began moving towards panel-based programming from 2010, with many of its highest profile prime time commentators conservative. Hosts Andrew Bolt and Paul Murray have been compared to Fox News presenters Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity respectively. Academics note Sky News also featuring "centre-left" commentators and "respected independent journalists" as a key distinction to Fox News. However, since the changes implemented in 2017, Sky News has not been nominated for any television or journalism awards, an area where it had historically performed well.
In August 2018, Sky News was heavily criticised for providing a platform to Blair Cottrell, leader of the Neo-Nazi organisation United Patriots Front in a one-on-one discussion about immigration on The Adam Giles Show. Sky News presenters, including Laura Jayes and David Speers, were among those critical of his appearance on the program due to the fact that he has expressed admiration for Hitler and claimed to have manipulated women "using violence and terror." Sky News commentator and former Labor Party minister Craig Emerson resigned in protest after the interview was broadcast, stating that "My father fought Nazis in WWII and was interred in a German POW camp", and that the decision to give Cottrell a platform on Sky News was "another step in a journey to normalising racism & bigotry in our country". Activist groups called on advertisers to pull advertising campaigns off Sky News in the wake of the channel’s interview with Cottrell. During the fallout and criticism over the interview, Cottrell responded by tweeting about raping reporter Laura Jayes, saying via Twitter that "I might as well have raped @ljayes on the air, not only would she have been happier with that but the reaction would’ve been the same." Jayes responded by stating that Cottrell is "not just a fascist. He’s down right dangerous".
In November 2018, Sky News terminated the contract of former Liberal Party MP and late-night presenter Ross Cameron for using racist language to describe Chinese people.
In the aftermath of the Christchurch mosque shootings in March 2019, Sky News Australia was temporarily removed from Sky New Zealand's satellite platform, amid concerns over how the channel's coverage could potentially affect the investigation into the attack; Fox Sports News was added to the platform as a replacement. Sky News Australia was restored to Sky New Zealand on 21 March, six days after the attack.

Accolades

Broadcast

Sky News began broadcasting in widescreen, along with its sister channels on 17 May 2009. Sky News Australia only provides closed captioning between 4pm and 5pm each day.
Sky News began broadcasting in high definition on 1 December 2015.

Other services

Sky News Multiview

With the roll-out of Foxtel Digital, Sky News Australia launched the Sky News Active interactive news service based on the Sky News UK service with the same name. The service offered a choice of eight news screens, some with original content not seen on the main channel they vary depending on the days news or events and include the latest news, business, sport, showbiz and weather in text. Other features included interactive polling and the latest news headlines via text. On 15 November 2009 Sky News active re-launched with a new look as well as 5 additional local screens (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide

Sky News Now

Sky News Now was a mobile service available on Vodafone, Telstra and 3. It offered a wide variety of news in both video and text. As of 2015, the service was no longer available.

Sky News Alerts

Sky News Alerts is a SMS and MMS breaking news service available on all mobile phones inside Australia. Breaking news alerts are sent to a subscriber via SMS or MMS at a cost per message.

Qantas

In November 2014, Sky News Australia was contracted to provide Qantas with in-flight news bulletins replacing a longstanding contract with the Nine Network.

Podcasting

Sky News offers various programs via podcast including First Business, Market Day, Showbiz, Agenda, Australian News Week, and Prime News New Zealand.

Sky News on WIN

Sky News on WIN is a free-to-air 24-hour hybrid general and sports news channel that was launched on 2 September 2018. The channel features shared news programming from both WIN Television and Sky News Australia, while regional WIN News content will also be broadcast on Sky News Australia. A large part of the schedule, though, is a simulcast of Fox Sports News' programs, including Sports First, Sports Saturday, Sports Sunday and Extra Time. The channel is available on digital channel 83 across WIN's regional markets in Southern NSW & ACT, Griffith, Regional Victoria, Mildura, Regional Queensland, Tasmania, Mount Gambier/Riverland and Western Australia, and digital channel 53 in Northern NSW & Gold Coast.
In its first two weeks, the channel averaged 10,000 viewers in primetime and 4,000 viewers in daytime, with Richo the highest rated program at 24,000 viewers.
The specifically produced morning news program Headline News is also simulcast nationally on Sky News Weather and regionally on WIN's main channel.