News

SCA partners with MediaHub to deliver Sky News Regional

Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has chosen MediaHub Australia to manage and deliver Sky News Regional channels across Australia.

MediaHub provides more than. 400 broadcast and live streaming services for both television and radio to audiences, and also offers services including media asset management, managed archive storage, VOD and transcoding services, audio description & closed caption insertion, in-house coding solutions, and more.

Sky News struck a multi-year free-to-air program supply agreement with SCA in May to broadcast content from Sky News on a dedicated 24-hour news channel.

Sky News Regional now airs in regional parts of NSW, VIC, QLD and SA, with reporting from the Sky News Australia and Fox Sports News teams.

MediaHub revealed that SCA entered into the arrangement as a result of a recommendation by Sky News, while the deal between the latter and SCA was being arranged.

MediaHub Australia executive head of operations, Scott Jolly, explained: “SCA and Sky News were keen to partner with MediaHub due to our quality of service and the collaborative relationship we already had with Sky News Australia.

“After a series of meetings and discussions with SCA we were awarded the contract.

“On a technical level they required connectivity via MediaHub’s FibreHub network to and from four live studios including live talkback. They also needed channel branding and graphics capabilities, promo and commercial content aggregation and commercial insertion for each of the three markets.

“Finally, SCA wanted us to provide programme record, preparation and turnaround for replay and breaking news quick-switching capabilities.”

Sky News head of operations and innovation, Mark McKeown, said: “MediaHub is one of our most trusted technology partners. The team is innovative and efficient, and its products and services are flexible, scalable and reliable which is critical for live events and 24/7 channels.”

Jolly added: “It was a pleasure to collaborate on this project with both the Sky News and SCA teams and it’s a testament to their skills and determination that we achieved this all so quickly.

“MediaHub has an excellent and close working relationship with Sky News Australia providing playout for their channels on Foxtel and their OTT platforms and we are delighted to expand on the services we provide for SCA on free to air.”

Off-the-back of the suspension of Sky News Australia’s YouTube account, SCA chief executive officer Grant Blackley told Mumbrella he’s pleased with Sky’s “strong news and information product”.

“They operate within the rules of Australian Communications and Media Authority, and they have not had a breach in ten years. There is some media noise around certain programs and news, but they remain fully compliant we are very comfortable with the Sky News product.”

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