Questions have also been raised over whether Sky can keep its famed YouTube channel without its “Sky News” naming licence, which as we discussed last week, has almost 6 million subscribers, and has amassed almost 7 billion views over its lifespan.
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With a catalogue of 200,000 videos with Sky’s branding splashed across the channel, staff are wondering if it could lose it all come December next year.
It wasn’t always like this for Sky News Australia, which launched as a co-venture between BSkyB, Nine and Seven in 1996. Before 2016, Stan Grant and David Speers hosted evening shows alongside Paul Murray on a network not exclusively home to the same Liberal Party cheerleading that now appears on air.
But in 2016, News Corp took over, the Foxification began and Sky After Dark was born.
Maybe this was the strategy all along. Or maybe it’s just another case of Fox forcing its way onto our screens using its market power, as fellow Trump-loving network Newsmax alleged on Thursday.
Talk of the gallery
After conducting its final round of interviews two weeks ago, The Guardian finally got back to the candidates for its top political job – to ask for two more weeks.
Poised to finally make its big hire after a nine-month stretch without a political editor, it instead underwent a minor restructure. Two staff members were made redundant, including head of audio Miles Martignoni, who took to LinkedIn to announce his departure on Wednesday.
Making redundancies while candidates (and the gallery) wait for the white smoke to emerge from Guardian HQ is “not a good sign”, said one former staffer as word of the two-week extension filtered out.
With that, the post-election press gallery merry-go-round rolls on – News Corp needs to replace ABC-bound Clare Armstrong and Capital Brief’s Anthony Galloway is heading south to cover state politics for The Australian in Melbourne, and there’s no direct replacement waiting in the wings.
With heavy intrigue over Andrew Greene’s immediate landing at The West Australian and The Nightly, it’s a wonder no one else can move at the speed of 84-year-old Kerry Stokes.
Albo’s got your back
The usually hyper-competitive TV networks got together and played nice for the nation’s top politicians in Parliament House this week in a lobbying event. They pulled an impressive crowd, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Communications Minister Anika Wells and Opposition Leader Sussan Ley also showing up despite a busy schedule during a parliamentary sitting week.
TV heavyweights pose with the PM:Bridget Fair, Andrew Lancaster, Beverley McGarvey, Anthony Albanese, Matt Stanton and Jeff Howard.
It seemed to work. Albanese got up in front of the most powerful people on TV and declared “my government has your back” against the tech giants, a statement that contrasts with inaction on the Media Bargaining Incentive, 18 months after Meta pulled its cash from media companies.
So, did the crowd buy it? Not really, if conversations with the attendees are anything to go by.
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