Sky News Australia will now have Sky News Radio, a live audio stream of its television channel, on digital radio in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with commercial advertising available through the Sky News and NOVA Entertainment sales teams.
This move is likely to have an impact on the listenership of catch up news podcasts like 7am and ABC News Daily, while also providing a focused and broader news service option for the Nova Network. It will be available to stream on the Nova Player, Smooth Player, Star 104.5 Player and FIVEAA Player apps, SkyNews.com.au and the Sky News Australia App.
Before I get to what Sky News Radio offers across the day, I want to share a screenshot of the June Australian Podcast Ranker:
The Sky News Australia Update podcast was up an impressive 11 spots to No 20 and has its sales representation through Nova and News Corp. With News Corp last week announcing a ‘third-party interest in a potential transaction’ for their 65% share in Foxtel, with this new collaboration I wonder if NOVA Entertainment is that third party?
The DAB+ Sky News Radio will feature breakfast program First Edition presented by Peter Stefanovic from 5:30am (all times are AEST), AM Agenda from 9am with Laura Jayes talking through the day’s headlines, political experts led by Chief News Anchor Kieran Gilbert on NewsDay at 11am and Ashleigh Gillon and Tom Connell on Afternoon Agenda from 2pm.
Later in the afternoon, from 5pm every weekday, there will be opinion commentators including Chris Kenny, Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt, Sharri Markson, Paul Murray (pictured) and more. Sky News investigations and weekly programs including Outsiders, Rowan Dean, Rita Panahi and James Morrow and business and finance expert Ross Greenwood will also be heard.
Sky News Australia Head of Digital Tim Love said:
“This year we’ve continued to grow our multiplatform offering and our launch into digital radio is another fantastic avenue that enables our network to extend the reach of our news, opinion and documentary programming to more Australians.”
Sky News Australia provides 24-hour television news and opinion content, reaching more than 11 million Australians each month. In January they launched a direct-to-consumer SkyNews.com.au Streaming Subscription with four news channels. It will be too soon for this new DAB+ station to be included in August 27’s GfK Radio 360 Survey 5. Come Survey 6 in October though this will provide direct competition to the struggling Disrupt Radio.
Jen Seyderhelm is a writer, editor and podcaster for Radioinfo
Regional TV viewers have had the chance to view Sky News of FTA while capital city viewers had to pay a subscription provider.
It is fortunate that the audio channels are now available on DAB+ in Dydney.
Sky News will complement ABC News Radio (630kHz and DAB+).
I "hope" this station remains on air compared to the former channel "Australia Today" which had a continuous loop of Steve Price and Natarsha Belling on an endless loop even on weekends.
Anthony, we are well-served with many choices, Strathfield South, in the land of the Wangal and Darug Peoples of the Eora Nation