How Sky News’s US-centric digital play is fracturing its newsroom

Sky News Australia’s digital strategy, aimed at growing its footprint by delivering content to an increasingly ultraconservative, US-based audience, has sparked a divide between the conservative broadcaster’s news and digital teams.

The shift in digital strategy at Sky, bought by News Corp Australia in 2016, has meant a greater emphasis on chopping up hours of content daily with a focus on US President Joe Biden, culture war issues and the royal family, resulting in a growing global audience.

However, the move has irked many of the broadcaster’s local news teams who feel their work is being ignored.

Joe Biden is popular with Sky News Australia’s online audience.Credit: SMH/The Age

Recent directives from Sky News management have drawn the battle lines between the newsroom and the company’s increasingly powerful digital desk, which is responsible for publishing more than 3500 videos a month to Sky’s 3.57 million YouTube subscribers.

Hosts and producers at Sky News have recently been ordered not to contact the digital team, a directive one senior member of the newsroom not authorised to comment publicly called a “shared frustration” among its ranks.

“The digital guys think they’re the stars,” the senior staffer told this masthead. The staffer added there was a “massive divide” growing internally due to the profits delivered on the back of a digital strategy that predominantly caters to a foreign audience, a peculiarity for an Australian broadcaster.

Sky’s digital editor, Jack Houghton, and head of digital Tim Love are the key figures behind the success, which has included the recruitment of controversial international talent Megyn Kelly, Nigel Farage, Douglas Murray and Piers Morgan as digital commentators in the past 18 months.

The preference and protections afforded to the digital heads come with the endorsement of CEO Paul Whittaker, this masthead was told.

Almost 38 per cent of Sky News’ digital audience (YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) comes from the US compared with 26 per cent in Australia, according to data from media monitoring company Meltwater, commissioned by this masthead. It is young, too, with an average age of 30.

Sky, which shares revenue from advertisements shown before and during its videos, signed content deals with YouTube and Facebook in 2019.

Data shows an average of 28,400 views per video, and more than 100 individual videos are posted each day, providing a lucrative income stream from YouTube’s creator program.

An analysis of recent content posted to Sky News’ YouTube channel across a seven-day period (September 18 to 25) shows content critical of Biden rating best among subscribers by some margin, with local content barely featuring.

The internal grumbling at Sky News has been spurred on by a stringent push from the digital heads for all traffic to be directed through Sky’s official channels to better scoop up all available revenue. A recent email sent to staff by head of programs Mark Calvert instructed that all references to personal social media accounts be removed by all local broadcast presenters and commentators.

“On-air promotion of the personal social media accounts of Sky News staff, hosts, contributors is not permitted,” the email, seen by this masthead, said. Another email in August told staff not to make any requests from Houghton and Love, and should talent want a particular on-air angle pushed, to write an opinion piece for skynews.com.au instead.

Under Whittaker, Sky News has been more successful in monetising its content digitally than its competitors, with broadcast ratings viewed with diminishing importance. The Sky YouTube channel pulls in 100 million views a month through chopped-up clips from its 24-hour news coverage. It also posts an average of 1700 videos a month to its 1.4 million Facebook followers.

The ABC, by comparison, posted 155 videos to its YouTube channel over the past seven days to its audience of 1.88 million subscribers. Nine News posted 160 videos to its 1.23 million subscribers. Nine is the owner of this masthead.

Sky has profited from moving its content further to the right, as opposed to the more mainstream News Corp titles, including The Australian and The Daily Telegraph, which continue to embark on sustained rounds of redundancies and cost-cutting.

The ascent of Whittaker, a former editor-in-chief of both aforementioned mastheads, culminated in his appointment as chair of a new editorial board at The Australian, overseeing Michelle Gunn, its first female editor-in-chief.

The move is viewed as a further formalisation of the connection between the papers and Sky News, according to a senior executive at News Corp, who spoke anonymously in order to speak freely, with on-air content pushed via news on the masthead’s website and several of its high-profile commentators regularly publishing columns as well. Media companies, including Nine and the ABC, have similar arrangements.

Sky News Australia was purchased wholly by News Corp in 2016, previously an entity in shared ownership by BSkyB, Seven Network and Nine Network, the transition coming while under the stewardship of Angelos Frangopoulos, the man credited with building the network, which he led for almost two decades.

First joining Sky News Arabia in 2018, since 2021 Frangopoulos has been running the new British channel GB News, described recently by former Sun editor David Yelland as a “poundland Fox News”, drawing on his experience catering to the “quiet Australians” via the Australian channel.

GB News has been marred with controversy since its launch, its high-profile chair, former Murdoch lieutenant Andrew Neil, departing three months after its launch, with calls for its broadcasting licence to be pulled this week after two prominent presenters were suspended over comments made on air regarding a female journalist.

Sky News sealed deals with WIN and Southern Cross Austereo in 2021 to launch Sky News Regional, increasing the network’s top commentators’ reach across parts of NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia on free-to-air television.

However, Sky News’ online market share, thanks to cross-promotion of content in News Corp titles, contrasts with its comparatively marginal overnight linear broadcast audiences.

Ratings for Chris Kenny, the broadcaster’s only prominent presenter to advocate for the Yes vote, remain an outlier in its “After Dark” schedule: audiences are switching off for his show, sandwiched between Andrew Bolt and Paul Murray, according to data from measurement agency OzTAM.

Whittaker was not available for interview, while a Sky News Australia spokesperson said: “Sky News Australia has a highly successful digital publishing strategy with our content resonating both here in Australia and around the world. Like other media organisations we have policies for sensible management of social media, which are respected by our staff.”

Houghton was also contacted for comment.

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