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News Corp in bid for SKY News

An offer of $25 million was sent yesterday to Seven, Nine and SKY News UK.

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davidspeers

News Corp Australia has made a $25m bid for SKY News, according to a report today.

The Australian reports an offer of $25 million was sent yesterday to its three shareholders inviting discussion about a potential buyout.

SKY News, managed by Angelos Frangopoulos, is jointly owned by Seven and Nine networks and Britain’s SKY News.

SKY is well-regarded in Canberra circles, with anchors including David Speers nabbing key political interviews. Talk show Richo & Jones recently scored headlines after Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen was unable to answer a question.

It isn’t known how new ownership might impact its ability to draw on footage from both Seven and Nine, given SKY’s newsrooms can’t match the commercial networks in terms of manpower and grass-roots news crews.

However News Corp has huge journalism resources around the country, many of whom are expanding into video content.

SKY recently launched Australia Channel, an online international news channel.

15 Responses

  1. Sky news looks like its run on a very tight budget and sounds like its run on a very tight budget .the news sets for all the shows on their are ordinary looking like they do their shows in someone’s bedroom . Just take a look at CNN and BBC thats how you present news .not like sky news Australia does .25 million is too much.

  2. When you buy a digital subscription to a News Corp paper – you get free 24 hour Fox Sports News streaming.

    I see bundling ahead.

    Buy digital access to the Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun etc – get free 24 hour Sky News streaming on all your devices.

    Digital subscription revenue would be given a huge boost – and Sky would boost it’s audience (and thus ad revenue)

  5. $25m seems low, perhaps it was just for a stake in Sky rather than outright? But in any case I don’t wish to see any such deal proceed, News Corp doesnt need more influence on news.

      1. 21C Fox owns 39% of Sky PLC, (but it is a controlling interest due to non-voting shares) which owns 1/3 of Sky News in Australia.

        This is Murdoch once again driving independent content, who wore some of the risk of Foxtel’s setup, out so that he can maximise his returns from the Monopoly in STV it has established while it competes against the internet.

      2. Murdoch should not be allowed to own any of SKY* or any other media outlet, anywhere!(*TV call-sign, not shouting, okay, David K.?). Murdoch threw away his most valuable possession, Australian citizenship to get his grubby paws on British and American print and broadcast media. He’s taken the once-respected London Times and turned it into a sleaze-rag, as he’s done with every other paper he’s gobbled up over the years.

  7. If News ends up buying out the current owners, am sure this will open the way for TEN. What is to stop TEN dropping all of its News content and sack all of its newsrooms and run SKY News Australia as a free to air digital multichannel? TEN might be able to argue it is still fulfilling licence conditions by airing Australian news content still, albeit on a digital multichannel? If that happens, am sure both Seven and Nine would quickly cut off the access that Sky now has to local content from them, including live news conferences.

  9. I really hope it happens. The current 3way ownership of SkyUK/Nine/Seven really holds the network back. A single owner would allow Sky to flourish. And News Corp has deep pockets to invest in Sky – News Corp owns Fox Sports Australia and look at the quality of their programming, HD coverage etc.

    However, At $25 million – News Corp’s valuation of Sky seems really low. In a 2014 article Glen Dyer wrote that Sky made a larger profit than News Corp and Ten in 2013-2014. And Nine said in it’s financial statements that it’s 33% share of Sky was worth $32 million. That would place Sky’s value at $100 million.

  11. Well it’s already “Faux News Lite” with all the right-wing content and screaming (I’m looking at you Paul Murray)… why not go the whole hog so we can still ignore it completely, like 23m other Australians.

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