Nation turns to Australia's news channel for major international events

SKY NEWS has consolidated its position as Australia’s News Channel with its coverage of the tragic events of the Japanese earthquake which have drawn record high viewing for international news on SKY NEWS.  

Australians are turning to SKY NEWS as our nation comes to terms with the tragedy unfolding for one of our nearest neighbours.

Where viewers could choose between SKY NEWS and Australia’s Free-To-Air produced 24 hour news service, SKY NEWS won a share of viewing up to 6.5 times greater than the other channel. And those who chose SKY NEWS watched for almost twice as long as those who watched the FTA channel.

In subscription TV homes on Saturday March 12, the SKY NEWS National channel won a 5.2% share of viewing. The FTA produced news channel had a 0.8% share.

In all metropolitan TV homes – including the almost 35% of homes with both STV and FTA, plus the homes that don’t have STV – SKY NEWS on Saturday had a greater average audience than the FTA news channel during 4 separate hours. For example, from 9am-10am on Saturday, SKY NEWS had an audience of 92,000 viewers compared with 86,700 for the other channel.

In subscription TV homes over the three days Friday to Sunday, average daily viewing was 49 minutes to SKY NEWS, compared to 25 minutes to the FTA news channel. In all metro TV homes, viewers spent on average 53 minutes with SKY NEWS on Saturday, compared to 38 minutes watching the FTA 24 hour news channel.

SKY NEWS continues to provide unrivalled coverage of events in Japan including a 24-hour “Japan” channel. SKY NEWS also has unrivalled Australian rights to coverage by world-leading broadcasters CNN International, ABC America, CBS, Reuters, APTN and SKY NEWS UK. 

SKY NEWS is dedicated 24/7 to the best live coverage of news from around Australia and the world, including on SKY NEWS National, SKY NEWS Business, SKY NEWS LOCAL channels, and A-PAC Australia’s public affairs channel.

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  • Courtney

    What does ‘the FTA News Channel’ mean? Is it ABC News 24? What’s wrong with saying that??

  • regan

    I guess they don’t want to be naming “the other guy”.

  • AndrewB

    If we cut through the spin for a moment:

    “in subscription TV homes” means that 34% of people who have Pay TV.

    That other channel is of course ABC News 24 BUT – that is a HD channel that NOT ALL subscirption TV homes have access to. Some can get the channel on 202 if they have an IQ2 or IQHD, others who do not have the HD box might be able to see the channel through their HD TV/PVR/set top box, if they had one in addition to sunbscription TV.

    Naturally Subscription TV homes will chose Sky News over ABC News 24 – as the figures show. Furhermore, all subscrpition TV homes have access to Sky News, regardless of their subscription TV package.

    But if you apply these figures to “ALL PEOPLE”, a Sky News share of 5.6% becomes more like 2.0%, while an ABC News 24 share of 4.2% – the record free to air share the channel reached last Friday would be something like 3.0%.

    Conclusion: The situation in Japan is a major news event during which demand for news rises dramatically. Thankfully we do have 24 hour news channels now, where we can drop in and drop out at any time to be updated rather than waiting for scheduled news – in both the free to air and Pay TV space.

  • regan

    nice clarification Andrew! :)