Sky News

Sky News is Europe's first 24-hour television news channel, originally launched as part of the 4-channel Sky Television satellite package in February 1989. Its main competitors in the UK are BBC News 24 and the ITV News Channel, while elsewhere in Europe it competes mainly with BBC World, Euronews and CNN International. Sky News is available via satellite in Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia and Oceania.

Related channels

As well as the original UK version, there are a growing number of other "Sky News" channels, and additional News Corporation news channels. They share content and expertise, but differ in focus and presentation.

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• Sky News Australia
  The first Sky News deriviate was Sky News Australia, launched on February 19 1996 as a joint venture between BSkyB, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and the Seven Network. This channel makes heavy use of Sky News UK material. The UK version in its entirety is also available in Australia, but only in a low bitrate form.
• Granada Talk TV
  Granada Talk TV launched on October 1 1996 as part of the Granada Sky Broadcasting joint venture between BSkyB and Granada. It was a partial-day UK opinion focused current affairs channel. It ceased transmission in August 1997.
• Fox News
  Sky News' "sister channel" in the United States is Fox News, launched on October 7 1996. Fox and Sky share use each others correspondents, studios and footage but there is a gulf in editorial stances of the two channels. Following Sky News' successful coverage of the 2003 Iraq War, some of which was broadcast on Fox News, there was a proposal to launch a Sky News US. This didn't eventuate.
• STAR News
  Hindi news channel STAR News was launched in 1998 on Asia's STAR TV platform. It is another News Corp channel that owes much in terms of style and presentation to Sky News.
• Sky Scottish
  Sky Scottish launched on November 1 1996 as a joint venture between BSkyB and Scottish Media Group. It was partial-day Sky UK channel with a focus on Scottish news and sport. It ceased transmission in June 1998.
• Sky News Australia New Zealand
  New Zealand's Sky News Australia New Zealand launched in 2001. Initially, only local news bulletins differentiated it from Sky News Australia, but its level of local programming has now increased. Some of this programming is also broadcast on Sky News Australia.
• Sky TG24
  Sky TG24, known to some English speakers as "Sky News Italia" launched on August 23 2003. However this Italian language channel has little in common with Sky News UK.
• Sky News Ireland
  Sky News Ireland began in May 2004. This differs from Sky News UK only in that it includes two local halfhour weekdaily programmes, and a weekly summary programme.

The standard UK Sky News channel is also available for overseas broadcasters; typically, this would be shown in hotels as part of their English-language line-up. The key differences between this overseas version and the UK version are the omission of the current time on the screen (reflecting that the channel may be shown outside of its normal GMT/BST time zone), and the absence of advertisements. In the space of the advertisement breaks are written summaries of news, business & sports headlines, accompanied by different mixes of the normal Sky News theme music.

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