Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. In 2019, Sky News was named Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year, the 12th time it has held the award.[1] The channel and its live streaming world news is available on its website, TV platforms, and online platforms such as YouTube and Apple TV, and various mobile devices and digital media players.
This article is about the British channel. For the Australian channel, see Sky News Australia. For the pan-Arab channel, see Sky News Arabia. For the defunct Irish channel, see Sky News Ireland.Country
United Kingdom
Worldwide
Sky Central, Osterley, London
English
David Rhodes (Head of Sky News Group); Jonathan Levy (Managing Director and Executive Editor, Sky News UK)
5 February 1989
Channel 233
Channel 233; Channel 313; Channel 385 (HD)
Channel 23
A sister channel, Sky News Arabia, is operated as a joint venture with the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation. A channel called Sky News International, simulcasting the UK channel directly but without British advertisements, is available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, Asia Pacific, Australia, and the Americas. Narrated segments (which generally cover lighter issues unrelated to current news stories) are played in lieu of advertisements, and international weather forecasts also are given at the end of each half-hour newswheel. Sponsored advertisements are still broadcast before and/or after the sports news and weather segments. Sky News Radio provides national and international news to commercial radio and community radio stations in the UK and other English-language stations around the world. Sky News also provides content to Yahoo! News.
Sky News Australia was part-owned by Sky News parent Sky plc until December 2016. Sky News Australia and Sky News UK are presently unlinked, despite the similar names and logos.
Additional channels[edit]
Sky News Raw[edit]
On 5 February 2019, Sky News launched a pop-up channel called Sky News Raw.[59] It aired with behind-the-scenes programming from 07:00 to 17:00 on channel 523 on Sky TV and online via Sky News' social media channels. The pop-up channel celebrated the 30th anniversary of Sky News, having first broadcast on 5 February 1989.[60]
Robotic cameras were placed around the newsroom and planning rooms at Sky Studios, in the three main television studios at Osterley and Millbank, and in the broadcast galleries.[61] There were also behind-the-scenes features from elsewhere in the newsgathering operation, such as the Sky News helicopter and ENG vehicles.[62]
Legal cases[edit]
In November 2008 BSkyB paid substantial undisclosed libel damages to Robert Murat in relation to their reporting of the abduction of Madeleine McCann. Sky News had falsely suggested that Murat, who was assisting in the search of McCann, had acted like child murderer Ian Huntley following McCann's disappearance. Sky News also falsely accused Murat of misleading journalists into thinking he was working for the police. An apology was also placed on the Sky News website, the libellous material removed and Murat's costs were paid.[97]
In November 2010 the Attorney General for England and Wales, Dominic Grieve QC, was given the right to launch contempt of court proceedings against Sky News over the broadcaster's alleged breach of a media injunction. It was in relation to the reporting of the story of Paul and Rachel Chandler, a Kent couple who were held captive by Somali pirates for 13 months. The media was blocked from publishing details of the couple's "health and welfare" prior to their being freed on 14 November 2010. Sky claims that it "scrupulously observed the terms of the injunction", but also admitted that it "followed the spirit, if not the letter" of the order. At the time, lawyers representing the Chandlers obtained the court order over fears that their lives could be put in danger by the media reporting their capture. Sky News was alleged to have breached the injunction on the day of their release around from Somalia, leading the Attorney General to seek permission at the High Court to bring contempt proceedings.[98] The Attorney General dropped the case in January 2012; a spokesperson for his office said that continuing with proceedings would no longer be in the public interest.[99]
In March 2013 Sky News journalist Mark Stone and his camera operator were detained in Tiananmen Square live on television, in what he described as a surreal but telling episode about reporting in China.[100] Viewers saw Stone being directed into a police van live from Beijing. A police officer was filmed asking the Sky team to switch off their camera, saying they were now inside the Forbidden City and did not have permission to film there. While they had permission to film in the square, Stone said police told him the team were not displaying their passes correctly.[101]
Awards[edit]
Sky News won BAFTA awards for coverage of the 11 September 2001 attacks[102] and the 2002 Soham murders.[103]
Sky News's coverage of the 7 July 2005 London bombings won the 2006 International Emmy for Breaking News award. The coverage was commended as "fast and accurate".[104]
In June 2007, Sky News was named Best News Channel at the Broadcast Digital Channel Awards. It beat several other national and international broadcasters, including Al Jazeera English and the BBC.[105]
The channel won a BAFTA Award in the News Category on 10 May 2015, for Alex Crawford's coverage of the 2014 Ebola crisis.[106]
In 2018, Sky News was named Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year, the eleventh time the channel had won the award.[1][107][108]
Sky News won a BAFTA Award in the News Category on 13 May 2018 for "The Rohingya Crisis".[109] Special Correspondent Alex Crawford, cameraman Martin Smith and producer Neville Lazarus travelled into Myanmar to bring a first-hand report of what was happening in Rakhine State.[110] The same programme also won an International Emmy Award for News in October 2018.[111]
Sponsorship[edit]
In November 2014, Sky News sponsored the Young Person in Business category of the National Chamber Awards. It was won by Oliver Bryssau of Origin Broadband, which was named Business of the Year.
Online[edit]
news.sky.com[112] is the channel's main website. It provides news, sport, weather, showbiz, and business stories.
In 2009, the website changed to bring it in line with the on-screen look of Sky News. The site made use of Flash video encoding to match the visual style of the TV channel with pictures and breaking news. The site underwent a further refresh in 2012, when both the look of the pages and the content management system were updated.
In 2021, to bring the website in line with the new Sky News branding on-screen minor tweaks were made such as font updates and updated breaking news graphics.
Audience figures[edit]
The Daily Telegraph reported in November 2021, "Sky's top performing shows, including Trevor Phillips on Sunday, average around 160,000 viewers".[115]
In the period from 22 November 2022 to 21 December 2022, Sky News averaged 52,230 each day for its prime-time audience (between 7pm and 11pm). Its all-day average was 53,350.[116]
Organisation[edit]
Budget[edit]
As of 2018, Sky News had an estimated £90 million annual budget, employs about 500 staff, but it makes a loss of between £15 million and £20 million a year, according to The Guardian.[117]
Official website
Media related to Sky News at Wikimedia Commons
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