Sky News is the latest broadcaster to face the harsh realities of a dying media format. Executive chairman David Rhodes told staff today that the broadcaster would pursue a new strategy called “Sky News 2030.“ Going digital…
TalkTV was just the start. Lossmaking Sky News will move more content behind an online paywall in a shift from linear programming as its revenue streams are “largely stagnant.” “Breaking and live” TV is largely up for the chop…
As Guido reported last year, trouble has been brewing at Sky Towers for some time as its Comcast funding guarantee ends in 2028 and there has so far been no contract renewal. Rhodes said at the meeting Sky should shift from a 30/70 premium-to-live ratio to 70/30. Paywalled premium content will include podcasts and video. He says “some of [new revenues] are ad based. Some of them won’t be. Some of them could be conducive to subscription. We need to add to our revenue mix.” Beth Rigby has called the changes “exciting.” Exciting for GB News…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”