Sky News Australia has delivered record audience share across its platforms for the second consecutive year, reaffirming the importance of live news, commentary and analysis to Australian audiences.
For the second year running, Sky News is the #1 channel on Foxtel, the #1 Australian news channel on social media and continues to grow its regional free-to-air audiences.
As the news service marks its 25th year, viewership across its broadcast and digital platforms was once again driven by its live breaking news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, in-depth political and national affairs coverage, commentary from opinion leaders, and a continued slate of long-form special investigations and documentaries.
Paul Whittaker, chief executive, said: “In another year that was filled with uncertainty, Australians again turned to Sky News in record numbers to stay across the latest developments and for exclusive insights on complex issues driving the national debate.
“It’s clear by our continued multi-platform growth, that Australians value our compelling news offering of live breaking news, political and national affairs coverage, opinion and investigative documentaries that take a deep dive into issues of importance.”
Paul Whittaker
Sky News on Foxtel
For the second consecutive year Sky News ranked as the #1 channel on Foxtel across the year-to-date, reaching over 3.4 million unique viewers and delivering a record average audience share of 3.2% for the past 47 weeks.
After a record year of ratings in 2020, strong audience growth has continued across key dayparts and programs in 2021.
Breakfast weekdays (5:30am – 9am) featuring First Edition saw viewing increase by +9% year-on-year, reaching over 1 million unique viewers.
Morning weekdays (9am – 12pm) featuring political programs AM Agenda, NewsDay and the regular 11am COVID-19 press conferences, delivered record average audiences up +18% year-on-year, reaching more than 1.4 million unique viewers.
Primetime weekdays (5pm – 10pm) featuring opinion programs The Kenny Report, Credlin, The Bolt Report, Alan Jones and Paul Murray Live continued to drive strong evening audiences, reaching 2.3 million unique viewers across the year.
Sundays (All Day) also performed strongly driven by Outsiders, Business Weekend and Sharri, reaching over 2 million unique viewers across the year.
Among the programs recording year-on-year growth following record audiences in 2020 include The Kenny Report (weekdays 5pm) up +11%, Credlin (weeknights 6pm) up +5% and Business Weekend (Sundays 1pm) up +4%.
During the Sydney COVID-19 lockdown (26 June – October 10, 2021), All Day average audiences increased by +5% compared to the same-time-last year and by +27% compared to the year-to-date average.
Topical and ground-breaking investigative documentaries continue to drive audiences with What Really Happened in Wuhan and Men In The Mirror: Rudd and Turnbull holding the #1 and #2 individual program positions for the year on Sky News, and ranking as the #1 program and #1 non-sports programs on Foxtel at premiere respectively.
Sky News Digital
Sky News continued its lead as the #1 Australian news channel on social media in 2021, with video views across its digital platforms increasing by more than +25% year-on-year to a record 1.3 billion views, driven by growth across the recently relaunched SkyNews.com.au, and audience engagement on YouTube and Facebook.
Sky News Australia retained its position as Australia’s highest-reaching YouTube news page with 2.1 million subscribers.
With more than 19 million engagements (likes, comments and shares) on Facebook posts throughout 2021, Sky News Australia is the country’s most-engaging television news page on the platform, and the second-most engaging overall Australian news page. Engagements on Sky News Australia Facebook posts have increased +22% year-on-year.
SkyNews.com.au readership more than doubled following the website’s relaunch in July 2021, now achieving an average monthly readership of 2.8 million unique visitors, an increase of +129% year-on-year.
Readership has grown due to the expanded content strategy with exclusive long-form text reporting to support Sky’s market-leading digital video network.
Sky News Regional
Since launching on August 1 2021, regional free-to-air news channel Sky News Regional has delivered a record average audience with viewing up +4% year-on-year as compared to the Sky News on WIN channel.
Sky News on WIN previously broadcast in 30 markets across WIN’s regional network throughout Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, from 2 September 2018 to 31 July 2021.
Since August 1, Sky News Regional has reached over 2.2 million unique viewers driven by strong performance of key dayparts.
Breakfast weekdays (6am-9am) delivered a record average audience up +612% year-on-year, reaching more than 400,000 unique viewers since August.
Mornings (9am-12pm) delivered a record average audience, with viewership increasing by +10% year-on-year, reaching more than 1 million unique viewers.
Primetime weekdays (6pm –10pm) including programs Credlin, The Bolt Report and Paul Murray Live delivered a record average audience up +7% year-on-year and reached 1.2 million unique viewers.
Sky News Regional broadcasts in 17 of SCA’s regional markets across Victoria, Southern NSW and Queensland and on the WIN Network in Northern NSW, Griffith and South Australia.