Sky News Australia

Corporate

Sky News Channel's parent company, Australian News Channel (ANC), 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 A$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.

Programming

Sky News programming consists of a mix of live news bulletins, live broadcasts from events (such as Parliament Question Time and selected press conferences), 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, ahead of the 2013 federal election, moving away from rolling news or formal news bulletins in primetime. 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 (AEST/AEDT), commentary programs begin, and continue through primetime until 10pm AEST/AEDT. Most of these programs are presesented by 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 (and sometimes further updates during the program). Rolling news continues from 10pm AEST/AEDT before coverage switches to an overnight simulcast of Sky News UK at 1am until 5am.

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.

News presenters

Reporters

Contributors

Bureaus

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 will open a bureau in Cairns, making it the first non-capital city bureau.

The base of Sky News Australia is in the Sydney suburb of Macquarie Park, where the majority of its news and programming is broadcast from. 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 only foreign bureau is in Wellington, New Zealand, opened in 2015.

Ratings

The highest rating broadcast on Sky News Australia was an episode of Paul Murray Live on 26 June 2013 (following the 2013 Labor leadership spill), 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 (AEST) hour was the highest rated at 109,000 viewers. Sky News achieved a day time share of 2.6% (behind ABC News 24's 3.8%) and a primetime share of 1.5% (behind ABC News 24's 2.5%).

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 (including simulcast on Sky News Business) during the 2015 Liberal leadership spill. It was the most watched subcription 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 2016 ferderal election, Sky News averaged 96,000 viewers, an increase of 46% from the 2013 election.

Criticism

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 "centrist left" commentators and "respected independent journalists" as a key distinction to Fox News.

During the 2016 federal election campaign, Liberal Party strategist Tony O'Leary reportedly told Sky News that Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull would boycott appearing on the network, while it employed previous Prime Minister Tony Abbott's former chief of staff Peta Credlin as a commentator. Turnbull also described its audience as "too small."

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 (AEST/AEDT) each day.

Sky News began broadcasting in high definition on 1 December 2015.

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.