Rumours about the future of Sky News are swirling, and they aren’t pretty. With viewership dwindling and financial woes mounting, the channel has slashed its freelance budget, along with Sky announcing plans to lay off 1,000 staff members in January. Staff have complained of a steep drop in available shifts, and discontent among employees is bubbling over as they prepare to unionise, fed up with meagre pay and poor working conditions…
The numbers tell a grim story. August saw Mark Austin’s The News Hour limp to a mere 76,000 viewers—less than half the 165,000 who tuned in to BBC News channel at 6pm. Meanwhile, Ofcom’s latest figures reveal a troubling trend: the percentage of people who say they watch Sky News has dropped from 21% last year to just 19% in 2024…
Comcast, which acquired Sky News in 2018, has only committed to keep the channel afloat until 2028. With an annual budget exceeding £100 million, though racks up losses in the tens of millions, Sky News is far from a money maker. Notably, the contract has yet to be renewed, leaving the future of the channel in question. News of trouble brewing at Sky Towers will be music to the ears of its rivals…
Green Deputy Leader Rachel Millward said:
“The reality is that it’s Zack Polanski who brought the nation, Andy Burnham. And if we hadn’t had the success of the Green Party in this last year since Zack’s been leading, which has been unprecedented, phenomenal success and a growth from about 60,000 members to 230,000, if we hadn’t had that much pressure on Labour, then we’d probably still be in the Starmer regime, which was pretty much ushering in a Reform government with its lurch to the right. So actually, what we’re seeing now is that we’ve set the political agenda and the government is picking that up.”