{"id":613171,"date":"2026-04-29T11:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/613171\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:31:11","slug":"why-sky-news-is-moving-beyond-commoditised-breaking-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/613171\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Sky News is moving beyond ‘commoditised’ breaking news"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sky
\n Sky News executive editor Jonathan Levy speaking at Press Gazette\u2019s Future of Media Trends event in London on 22 April 2026. Picture: The Photo Team for Press Gazette<\/p>\n

The top editor at Sky News has explained why the channel can no longer rely on covering \u201ccommoditised\u201d breaking news.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Levy, managing director and executive editor at Sky News<\/a>, said although the newsbrand is strong at covering breaking news \u201cby heritage\u201d, this has become a \u201cmuch more commoditised and competitive space\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sky News is currently implementing a plan to be a \u201cpremium video-first newsroom built for the digital future\u201d<\/a> with less reliance on live, breaking TV news by 2030.<\/p>\n

It has just announced its planned first forays into paid content both coming this summer: a subscription-based app specifically for defence content<\/a> and paid podcasts with perks like ad-free listening and bonus episodes.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Press Gazette\u2019s Future of Media Trends<\/a> event in London last week, Levy said: \u201cBy heritage, we\u2019re a breaking live news organisation, and we\u2019re very comfortable doing breaking live. We\u2019re very good at it. We all love doing it. If you go into the Sky News newsroom when a big story is breaking, it\u2019s our happy place. We all click into that very readily. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a realisation that that\u2019s becoming just a much more commoditised and competitive space. When a big story breaks I\u2019ll get five, six, seven alerts at the same time. So we knew that we couldn\u2019t rely on being primarily that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levy said big breaking news days, from the Manchester synagogue attack and Bondi beach shooting in December to former Foreign Office chief Olly Robbins giving evidence about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador last week, will continue to get people \u201cin the door\u201d before they can hopefully be encouraged to stay for \u201cthe deeper, richer content\u201d.<\/p>\n

But covering breaking news online may make the Sky News website more resilient to the impact of Google\u2019s AI Overviews, which have been linked to global newsbrand search traffic falling by a third in the year to November<\/a> but has affected publishers unevenly.<\/p>\n

Levy said: \u201cSearch has been an aspect of how we found our audience with our text journalism. It\u2019s never been all that we\u2019re about, or even mainly what we\u2019re about. So maybe the impact of this has been less for us than it has been for other news organisations. <\/p>\n

\u201cAlso because a lot of our text copy has been around breaking news stories, I think that\u2019s been less impacted by AI summaries\u2026 [But] there\u2019s no doubt that it is going to have a big impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levy said focusing on more in-depth analysis also helps insulate the channel against the impact of AI summaries.<\/p>\n

He referenced a 26-minute video report<\/a> produced this month by chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his team in Cuba about the impact of the US oil blockade on the country, and political editor Beth Rigby\u2019s analysis of Robbins\u2019s select committee testimony.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, that type of journalism is less vulnerable to technological disruption by AI than other types, so we want to originate as much as possible, because we think that\u2019s one of the ways that we\u2019ll have people coming back and consuming our journalism long into the future,\u201d Levy said.<\/p>\n

He added that this is \u201cwhy a push harder into video on digital platforms makes a lot of sense, to be honest. From a consumer point of view, there\u2019s going to be a big impact around text journalism. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe think video will be less impacted for obvious reasons, and also just origination. For us, it is about original journalism as much as possible. A straight news lead is more threatened by the technology we\u2019re talking about, AI technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sky News has \u2018breakthrough\u2019 for digital video with Iran war story<\/p>\n

There has been a \u201chuge appetite\u201d for Sky News journalism about the Iran war, Levy said, citing in particular a \u201cbig pick up\u201d in both consumption and engagement with video, mainly short-form, on the Sky News app as well as longer-form videos on Youtube.<\/p>\n

Some 597.5 million minutes were spent with Sky News online (across its website, app and third-party platforms like Apple News, MSN and Yahoo) in the UK in March, a nine-month high, even though its monthly audience was its lowest in 2026 so far on 17.7 million people.<\/p>\n

Levy said: \u201cWe\u2019ve found the consumption of video on digital platforms has been a huge breakthrough for us in this particular story,\u201d describing this as \u201cencouraging from a coverage and a strategic point of view\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the Iran war is a \u201cdifficult story\u201d both because of the quantity of pictures and events coming out of the Middle East and the difficulty for journalists to be there on the ground \u2013 although international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn was one of few international journalists able to enter Iran.<\/a><\/p>\n

Levy said the two main pillars of Sky News for the Iran war story have been \u201ceyewitness journalism, which is our favoured way of covering stories where we can. And then a lot of analysis, especially of the military and economic implications.\u201d He said analysis videos by economics and data editor Ed Conway and military analyst Michael Clarke had proved \u201cvery popular with consumers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tiktok part of \u2018primary strategy\u2019 despite limited revenue and referral opportunities<\/p>\n

Tiktok has seen \u201cphenomenal\u201d recent growth, Levy added, noting that Sky News now has 11 million followers on the platform. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn order for each incremental one million to get to ten [million] took quite a long time, and we\u2019ve actually got from ten to 11 very quickly. And a lot of that has been a mixture of the Iran war primarily, but also a bit the Artemis launch. So actually, this year has been very good for us on Tiktok.\u201d<\/p>\n

However Tiktok remains a \u201creach opportunity\u201d rather than a revenue one for Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re judicious about pure reach opportunities, because much of what we\u2019re doing is also about generating engagement and communities around our journalism and our talent, and less about broad reach,\u201d Levy said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy we decided to put Tiktok as part of our primary strategy is because of the different types of audiences that it reaches. The Sky News audience on our own and operated platforms tends to be older. It tends to skew male. What we can reach on Tiktok is a younger female audience. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t drive back to our platform via Tiktok at all. There\u2019s very little referral, if any at all. But what we are doing with that \u2013 in a fairly straightforward way, it doesn\u2019t require that much reprocessing of our content but it requires some \u2013 is we\u2019re getting our journalists and our journalism in front of a group of people who wouldn\u2019t be coming on the Sky News app or less even on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levy said prioritising digital video has required an \u201cadjustment\u201d in how it is produced, including in the tone and the personality required of the presenters \u201cand combining that with our trusted, impartial journalism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hasn\u2019t just been a question of chopping up linear TV and putting it on digital,\u201d Levy added. \u201cIt\u2019s about inverting that and actually making video for digital platforms the first thing we think about and actually, in some ways that flowing onto TV \u2013 certainly in an on demand way.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the TV channel is often now \u201creceiving rather than being the originator of\u201d the storytelling being produced.<\/p>\n

\n \n<\/p>\n

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk<\/a> to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sky News executive editor Jonathan Levy speaking at Press Gazette\u2019s Future of Media Trends event in London on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,266218,168,451,3,116908,1153,452,453],"class_list":["post-613171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-future-of-media-trends","tag-google","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sky-news","tag-tiktok","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}