Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network, and news 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 2024, Sky News was named Royal Television Society News Channel of the Year, the 17th time it has held the award and the channel's 7th consecutive win. The channel and its live streaming world news are available on its website, television platforms, and online platforms such as YouTube and Apple TV, and various mobile devices and digital media players.
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 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.
History
Establishment and early years
On 8 June 1988, Rupert Murdoch announced in a speech to the British Academy of Film and Television Arts plans to start a new television news service. Sky News started broadcasting at 6 pm on 5 February 1989.In the early days, the channel operated on a £40 million budget, which led Sam Chisholm, chief executive of the newly merged BSkyB, to suggest to Murdoch that the station be closed, but Murdoch was "pleased with its achievements... there were overriding reasons of prestige and politics for keeping it... the final hurdle of the Broadcasting Bill had still to be overcome and the case for the acceptability of Sky would collapse if suddenly there was no news channel." Former Home Secretary William Whitelaw said in the House of Lords in 1990 that Sky News had "a very high reputation... I admire it, as do many other people, it will certainly waken up both the BBC and ITN and ensure that they compete with what is a very important news service" . The channel has never been run for a profit, and has considered using ITN to supplement the service.
By March 1992, Sky News' parent company turned from loss to profit.
Sky News was the UK's first 24-hour news channel, broadcast on Astra 1A. It had no local competition until November 1997, when BBC News launched a new 24-hour channel, BBC News 24, now known simply as BBC News. In September 1999, the European Commission ruled against a Sky News complaint, which argued that the publicly funded BBC News 24 was unfair and illegal under EU law. The EC ruled that the television licence fee should be considered state aid, but that the BBC's public service remit justified the channel.
2000–2018
In March 2000, Sky News Active, a 24-hour interactive service providing headlines and other services which ranged from weather, the top story of the day, and showbiz on demand, was launched.Analogue broadcasting of the channel ceased on 30 June 2001.
In March 2004, Sky News was announced to have won a five-year contract to supply news bulletins to Channel 5, taking over from ITN in January 2005.
On 24 October 2005, Sky News moved to new studios in Isleworth, Greater London, and underwent a major on-screen revamp. The new studio was integrated with the newsroom and boasted the biggest video wall in Britain; it was designed by New York architects Janson Design Group. New music was scored by Adelphoi Music and recorded with a full orchestra at Air Studios, Hampstead, and mastered at Metropolis Studios. New on-screen graphics were launched and the channel began broadcasting in widescreen format.
The 2005 relaunch also had the introduction of a new schedule designed around "appointment to view" programmes rather than continuous rolling news. James Rubin joined to present a new evening programme called World News Tonight, Julie Etchingham presented another new "hard-hitting" evening show called The Sky Report, Eamonn Holmes joined to present Sunrise, Kay Burley presented a new programme called Lunchtime Live from 12 to 2 pm, and the daytime show Sky News Today had the introduction of a three-presenter format. However, the relaunched schedule was unsuccessful, and from October 2005, the BBC News channel overtook Sky News in the ratings.
In response to the schedule's unpopularity with viewers, July 2006 saw the removal of the evening programmes—which were replaced by rolling news and an interactive programme, Sky News with Martin Stanford, and the return to a two-presenter format on Sky News Today. These changes came with the arrival of John Ryley, who is still the head of Sky News. On 1 October 2007, Sky introduced another new schedule, extending Kay Burley's Lunchtime Live programme and renaming it Afternoon Live. It also switched to a new format for much of the day, with a solo lead presenter and a summary newsreader. Sky News put more emphasis on interactive news with Martin Stanford's new SkyNews.com programme; an early evening financial news programme presented by Jeff Randall, was also introduced, initially on Mondays only. Further changes were made to the Sky News schedule on 8 September 2008, with Colin Brazier presenting a new show from 1 – 2 pm, The Live Desk, and Martin Stanford's Sky.com News became SkyNews.com, moving to 7 pm every weeknight. More changes took place during the early part of 2009. These changes involved major changes to the layout of the newsroom/studio, the introduction of a morning edition of The Live Desk and the extension of the financial news programme Jeff Randall Live to run for four nights each week, Monday to Thursday.
From 6 am to midnight on 8 March 2010, Sky News was presented and produced exclusively by women to mark International Women's Day. This exercise was repeated in 2011 and 2012.
In preparation for the start of high-definition broadcasting, Sky News moved to its second studio on the morning of 30 March 2010. Broadcasting from Studio B continued until 9 pm on 6 May, when it moved back to the main newsroom and launched Sky News HD in time for the 2010 general election results. Sky News received a graphics refresh and a new logo to coincide with the launch of the new HD channel – this was tried out during the soft launch for Sky News HD on 22 April; Sky News' distinctive orchestral theme music, in use since 2005, was also updated on 6 May 2010. The new title music, orchestrated by David Arnold, was recorded with a 60-piece Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Angel Recording Studios, London, and uses more than 132 audio channels for 18 seconds of sound.
Following the 2015 general election, Sky News was rebranded, with a new top-of-the-hour sequence and on-screen graphics. The traditional opening voiceover, read by Bruce Hammal, was dropped after two decades in use. On 24 October 2016, Sky News began broadcasting from a new studio at Sky Central, Sky's new headquarters in West London. The "glass box" studio was initially used for broadcasts from 6 am to 6.30 pm each weekday - as of April 2019 it was only used from 11 am to 7 pm, and 9 pm to 12 am. The schedule was also changed.
In January 2017, Sky moved its business operations into the News Building in central London. On 16 January 2018, Sky moved all its news operations over to Studio 21, "the glass box", and a new studio in Sky Studios.
Comcast acquisition, 2018–present
On 9 December 2016, Sky shareholder 21st Century Fox announced that it had made an offer to acquire the remainder of the company for £11.7 billion. The combination of Sky with Fox's other assets led to concerns that the Murdoch family would attain "material influence over news providers with a significant presence across all key platforms" and "increased influence over the UK news agenda and the political process". Concerns were also raised about recent sexual harassment allegations centred upon Fox's U.S. network Fox News, although Ofcom did deem 21st Century Fox to be "fit and proper" to hold broadcast licences. On 14 December 2017, The Walt Disney Company in turn announced its intent to acquire 21st Century Fox, following the divestiture of certain assets. Analysts felt that would ease regulatory tensions surrounding the Fox purchase of Sky, as Sky was to be included in the purchase, and Disney's scope of media ownership in the UK was not as wide.In January 2018, the Competition and Markets Authority issued a preliminary report recommending that Sky News be insulated from the remainder of Murdoch's assets, or divested, in order to preserve its editorial independence. The following month, Fox proposed a commitment to funding Sky News for 10 years, and the establishment of an independent editorial board. The commitments would have been inherited by Disney if it completed its purchase. On 3 April 2018, Fox stated that Disney had expressed interest in acquiring Sky News in a separate transaction, not dependent on the outcome of the Disney/Fox purchase.
On 5 June 2018, the then Culture Secretary Matt Hancock cleared Fox's proposed deal, contingent on the divestiture of Sky News. It also cleared counteroffers for Sky that were being made in a bidding war by U.S. telecoms and media conglomerate Comcast. Comcast made a US$65 billion counter-offer to acquire the 21st Century Fox assets being sold to Disney. Fox rejected the offer, in favour of a higher-valued offer from Disney. Comcast subsequently pursued a counter-offer for Sky only, resulting in the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers ordering that a blind auction be held between Comcast and Fox. On 22 September, Comcast was declared the winner of the auction, resulting in Fox agreeing to sell its controlling stake in Sky to the company.
The sale made Sky News a sister division to NBC News—a U.S.-based news operation owned by Comcast's U.S. media division NBCUniversal, its U.S. pay television news channel MSNBC, as well as Euronews—a pan-European news channel which NBCUniversal owned a stake in at the time of purchase. Since the acquisition, NBC News has occasionally simulcast Sky News on MSNBC and NBC News Now to cover international breaking news, while the two divisions have collaborated on projects such as podcasts. In April 2019, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts stated that the company was exploring the establishment of a "global" news channel as a joint venture between Sky News and NBC News. In January 2020, it was stated that this new channel would also be carried on NBCUniversal's new U.S. streaming video platform Peacock. In April 2020, it was stated that the launch of the service, by then known as NBC Sky World News, would be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 20 April 2020, NBCUniversal sold its stake in Euronews to one of its existing shareholders, citing a desire to prioritise the NBC/Sky service instead. The proposed service was scrapped in August 2020, resulting in layoffs of 60 employees.
On 3 June 2021, Sky News updated its top-of-the-hour sequence, soundtrack, and on-screen graphics package. A Sky News source denied the move was related to the launch of GB News. On 9 February 2023, David Rhodes was appointed Executive Chairman of the Sky News Group in charge of all Sky's news operations. Jonathan Levy was appointed Managing Director and Executive Editor, Sky News UK.
On 19 July 2024, Sky News was taken offline by the 2024 CrowdStrike incident, briefly making it unable to broadcast live.
On 9 November Sky News released a video report on the November 2024 Amsterdam riots citing the fact that the violence was kickstarted by Israeli football fans chanting anti-Arab slurs and tearing down Palestinian flags from various properties. Shortly afterwards Sky News removed their coverage only to reupload an edited version seemingly removing culpability from the Israeli football fans for starting the violence, prompting outrage on social media.
On 25 September 2025, ahead of the planned spin-off of most of NBCUniversal's cable networks into a new company called Versant, MSNBC announced a "multi-year" agreement with Sky News to provide international newsgathering resources to the service after it separates from NBC News into an independent operation.