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SKY News dropped by Metro Trains

Backlash continues for SKY News following extremist interview.

SKY News will no longer be broadcast by Melbourne public transport group Metro Trains following a community backlash over an extremist interview earlier this week.

It had been seen on Melbourne underground screens.

Jacinta Allan, Victoria’s transport minister, revealed in a tweet she made the order.

SKY News is also broadcast at train stations across the Sydney transport network, but a spokeswoman for the NSW transport minister Andrew Constance said the state would not be following Victoria’s lead.

“NSW will not be changing what’s aired on train platforms,” she told The Guardian.

American Express, Huggies and Specsavers have also pulled advertising amid a social media campaign by activist group Sleeping Giants Oz.

Fairfax has reported former SKY News boss Greg Byrnes belatedly admitted he gave the go-ahead to interview Blair Cottrell because he thought his controversial views would be challenged on air.

“Yes, regretfully, it was my error,” he said.

“The company undertook a review and advised me of an immediate change to the editorial structure.”

Following an investigation Byrnes was appointed to the newly-created role of Acting Program Director and Kaycie Bradford became Acting News Director.

The Adam Giles Show has been suspended pending an internal review.

13 Responses

  1. I don’t need any element of Sky News while waiting for my train, and I don’t need the celebrity gossip claptrap that they also show. Just take the damn screens out.

  2. This story may need to be updated. The content was never seen on the train screens. The VIC minister jumped the gun before she had the correct facts.

  3. Why is sky news even being broadcast on melbournes metro stations .Why should one news service be allowed over others .why are not seven or nine or ten or even ABC news 24 allowed to broadcast on such a public platform . why should sky news most right wing extreme view of news be afforded such a privilege .well done to the Victorian premier no news service should be allowed to broadcast to the masses especially one that allows such extremists to appear on their news channel .on a side note Win network seems to be having a lot of difficulty trying to get advertisers on bored it’s sky news channel on win .rates have been dropping like flies as there are very few takers .

    1. Tonight, Sky News advised on air that the content telecast to Melbourne Metro consists solely of news and weather – no interviews or opinions are telecast. What is telecast on Sky News on Foxtel is therefore not the same feed that is distributed to Melb Metro.

      Like the Victorian transport minister, Tim tam needs to get the facts correct – in Tim tam’s case, it was not the Victorian premier who banned Sky News, it was Jacinta Allan, the transport minister.

      Let’s sat that Metro replaces Sky News with the ABC, then the masses are then going to be bombarded with left leaning views – but to some, that is okay.

      I am really worried about the rise of Trumpism-style censorship and vilification where the media are not allowed to have a contrary view to the views of the in-power government. In this regard, we’re progressively becoming something like despotic regimes.

      1. Speaking of which, the whole “I’m on your side, I totally am – but these Trumpish talking points seem totally valid & we should totally be talking about them” thing got real old real quick.

        Like, a month ago…

        Like it or not, Cottrell is a neo-Nazi. He’s stated on record that he adores Hitler, his picture should be in every classroom, schoolchildren should be issued ‘Mein Kampf’ annually, & Communism, adultery, homosexuality, atheism & miscegenation are evils brought by “the Jews” to destroy society.

        In a free society he has the right to say those things. Sky News has the right to promote them. That we hear about them shows we’re in a free society. But that right doesn’t mean no consequences…

        More broadly, when news media shun accuracy in the name of “balance” we, the people – including our representatives, the government – get to shun them back.

      2. ABC has been indepentantly analysed time and time again and each time found to be very lightly right leaning.

        If the ABC was as left leaning as you claim they wouldn’t air IPA opinions unchallenged en masse.

  4. On her program, Credlin, this evening, Peta Credlin stated that Sky News prepares a special package for the Victorian transport system, and the Cottrell interview was not part of that package. If that is the case, methinks that Jacinta Allan has acted unnecessarily hastily from an uninformed position.

    Credlin also suggested that Allan’s actions may be motivated by the WIN TV regional network telecasting Sky News into regional areas from 2 September this year, which is not all that much ahead of the upcoming Victorian state election in November. This means that regional areas will soon have two points of view from TV: the ABC as well as Sky News. Interestingly, Jacinta Allan is the member for Bendigo East.

    I don’t agree with all the points-of-view on either the ABC or Sky news, but Jacinta Allan’s over-reaction re Sky News is most concerning, reeking of what often happens in…

  5. Presumably in the interests of consistency the Victorian Transport Minister will also not allow news from the Seven, Nine and ABC networks to be broadcast at train stations as these media organizations have also aired interviews with the person in question.

    #governingby twitter
    # thought yesminister thethickofit spincity veep & thewestwing were templates of good government

    1. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

  6. So now instead of ads interspersed with 10 second news bulletins, we’ll just have ads. I doubt the Transport Minister’s ever even been to one of those train stations in recent years.

  7. I would be curious to know what Sky News really thinks about all this free publicity, plainly the editorial control needs tightening up so that Sky News meets some sort of acceptable community standard but the years of having their regular hosts pretty much having an open forum soap box for their political rants will mean it’s unlikely the small audience who enjoy watching Sky News will really care.

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