News

Sky News Australia strikes regional content deals with SCA and WIN

Sky News Regional will be available in 17 of Southern Cross Austereo (SCA)’s regional markets, and in select WIN Network regions, following a pair of new regional content deals that will take effect 1 August.

The new multi-year free-to-air program supply agreement between Sky News Australia and SCA will see the latter’s largest regional television markets broadcast content from Sky News on a dedicated 24-hour news channel.

Channel 56 will be broadcast across SCA’s regional television assets in Victoria, Southern NSW and Queensland including Cairns, Townsville, Sunshine Coast, Canberra, Wollongong, Wagga Wagga, Orange, Bendigo, and Ballarat.

Sky News Australia chief executive, Paul Whittaker

It will broadcast news, weather, national affairs and sport, in packages produced by the Sky News Australia and Fox Sports news teams, with programs including AM Agenda and Afternoon Agenda, Credlin, The Bolt Report, Alan Jones and Paul Murray Live. There will also be a live breakfast show on weekdays.

Sky News Australia is operated by Australian News Channel Pty Ltd (ANC) and is a subsidiary of News Corp Australia.

Sky News Australia chief executive, Paul Whittaker, said: “We have established a strong and dedicated free-to-air audience in regional Australia and we are pleased that, through this new multi-year agreement with Southern Cross Austereo, we can now provide viewers on the SCA network with the opportunity to discover Sky News content through a new dedicated channel, Sky News Regional.

“As we celebrate 25 years of broadcast in Australia, we look forward to introducing new television audiences to our unrivalled news coverage, together with informed analysis and context from our leading journalists and commentators.”

SCA CEO, Grant Blackley, said: “Our commitment to provide news and entertainment to regional Australia is core to our charter. We are delighted to be able to ensure regional Australians will have access to the high calibre and diverse programming this new partnership with Sky News delivers.”

SCA chief Grant Blackley

Sky News Australia has also announced the continuation of its program supply agreement to broadcast content on WIN Network’s Channel 53 in Northern NSW and on Channel 83 in Griffith, NSW and South Australia.

‘Sky News on WIN’, which will cease to broadcast across the WIN Network from 31 July, except for the Northern NSW, Griffith and South Australian markets where Sky News Regional will begin broadcasting.

Whittaker said: “Since the launch of our dedicated commercial free-to-air news channel in 2018, our news and national affairs programming has reached more than 5.5 million unique regional viewers seeking credible and reliable coverage and analysis.

“We are pleased to continue our partnership with the WIN Network which enables audiences in Northern NSW, the network’s largest market, as well as Griffith and South Australia, to continue to access our range of quality news, sport, weather and national affairs programming.”

WIN Network CEO, Andrew Lancaster, said: “We are pleased to continue our relationship with Sky News into select markets of the WIN Network. We also want to thank Sky News for working with us since 2018 to deliver Sky News on WIN for Australian regional audiences.”

WIN boss Andrew Lancaster

The new deal is the latest shakeup to regional broadcast affiliations in Australia, and comes just months after Nine ended its five-year regional affiliation agreement with Southern Cross Austereo.

At that time, Nine lined up a new minimum seven-year deal with WIN that will see the regional media company pay Nine about half of its regional advertising revenue.

SCA then announced intentions to enter into a new affiliation agreement with Network Ten, with the broadcast to supply programs for broadcast in the regional Queensland, southern New South Wales and regional Victoria commercial television license areas.

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