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Jobs go in SKY News restructure

Exclusive: SKY News boss confirms redundancies and contracts not renewed, amid reports of possible sale.

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Exclusive: SKY News has confirmed recent job losses as part of a restructure.

Angelos Frangopoulos, Chief Executive Officer, Australian News Channel said in a statement to TV Tonight, “SKY News is undergoing a restructure of its newsroom operations. A small number of positions have been made redundant or contracts not renewed.”

TV Tonight understands up to 5 roles have gone since March including Sydney senior producer David Peters plus two reporter positions in both Sydney and Melbourne.

In recent weeks reports have emerged of Seven and Nine at odds over the price of a possible sale of SKY News to News Corp. and there are suggestions that the job losses are tied to making their operations look more attractive.

Staff are said to be furious with the latest changes, given SKY is already a lean operation.

9 Responses

  1. Its probably too much to hope that Paul Murray & Chris Kenny will be going
    But they are conservative commentators, Coalition lackeys so we are only dreaming

  2. The usual story, Sky News has served Foxtel well for 20 years, but they are dependant on Foxtel which which now has a monopoly on Pay TV. Foxtel refused to renew the contract then offered to buy the operation for a fraction of its previous market value. The same way they have shafted every other independent channel provider who helped build Foxtel.

    Seven and Nine are arguing over whether to sell to News Corp for the little offered, lose more money streaming on the internet, or winding it up taking their bat and ball and going home.

  3. so this is how I see this play out – Nine and Seven sell to Foxtel. That would remove a logistical issue for the purchase of Ten and the merging of the SkyNews and Ten Newsrooms – that was never going to happen while Nine and Seven were owners. I think both Nine and Seven know what the medium term plan is and want to get as much money as possible. They also will want to reduce the capacity of the combined Sky New and Ten Newsrooms but now cutting back SkyNews as well.

    1. Both Foxtel and Optus set up their own duplicate analogue cable networks to avoid Keating’s regulated efficient digital satellite network proposal. Murdoch and Packer managed to sucker Telstra into funding the cost of the Foxtel analogue cable, and then upgrading it to digital, while keeping most of the subscription revenue in content holding vehicles like Fox Sports.

      Optus and Austar never made money because the Australian market was never going to large enough to fund 2 duplicated cable networks, and a satellite network, especially since the FTAs pressured the government to block them from showing popular sporting events, even international ones. So they had no choice but to sell out to Foxtel creating a monopoly.

      Via competition only arrived with SVOD, and Foxtel is trying to squeeze everything they can out of their monopoly to fight off challengers.

      1. But didn’t Foxtel, Austar and even Optus (via their “VIP” service hardly anyone was allowed to subscribe to) all broadcast their own feeds of the same channels via Optus satellites? They didn’t need the cable for TV once they all got the sat transmission started, they could have let it rot if there wasn’t good money in moving internet data over it (except in Darwin).

        Austar was going fine. It never “had-to” sell. Optus (aka Singtel) wanted a subscription TV content monopoly less than Foxtel and Austar’s various owners did. (Don’t forget Austar owned half of XYZ). The ACCC knowingly agreed to let the monopoly cartel form.

        The US pay TV industry continues to work fine with tonnes of popular sport on FTA. Not every country has to follow the UK model.

  4. “Slowly, the stench of death stretched over any ‘independent’ channel under the NewsCorpseMurdochTelstra umbrella (commencing with the ‘welcoming into the fold’ of the Optus Brands) until they were all finally cast out to the forbidden land, allowing only the Murdoch brethren to set forth and prosper within their own consultation…”

    And the Government of the day praised Murdoch the Almighty…

  5. Surprising Seven and Nine could both be keen to sell. I would have thought that apart from Sky News making them some extra cash (assuming Sky is profitable), that the extra long form interviews and news content it generates, particularily political coverage, gives them more quick grabs for their own news offerings and cuts the need for larger crews in Canberra.

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