Sky News and the regional capture

If you live in Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane, News24, the channel formerly called Sky News Australia, costs you money. It sits behind the Foxtel paywall, a subscription channel that, in primetime, runs opinions from Andrew Bolt, Peta Credlin, Chris Kenny, and Paul Murray. If you live in regional New South Wales, Victoria, or Queensland (in Wagga Wagga, Dubbo, Ballarat, Toowoomba, or hundreds of smaller communities) the same channel is on your television right now, for free, on Channel 56, as News24 Regional. In many of these areas, it is the only commercial 24-hour news channel on free-to-air television; the other free 24-hour news channel is the ABC's. In 2024, more than three million Australians in regional areas watched Sky News Regional. The channel’s average audience grew 23 per cent year-on-year.

01What Sky News Australia actually is

Sky News Australia launched on 19 February 1996 as a joint venture between British Sky Broadcasting, Seven Network, and Nine Entertainment, each holding a 33 per cent stake. For its first two decades it operated as a relatively conventional rolling news service.

In December 2016, News Corp Australia acquired the channel outright. What followed was a significant editorial transformation. The daytime programming retains a broadly conventional news format. But from 5pm, the channel switches to what it describes as ‘opinion programming’: a primetime lineup built around commentators who have, between them, promoted climate change denial, COVID vaccine misinformation, conspiracy theories, and far-right content.

Andrew Bolt. Australia’s most prominent climate science denier, who has had a racial discrimination finding upheld against him under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Peta Credlin. Former chief of staff to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who promoted false claims about the Uluru Statement during the 2023 Voice Referendum; claims debunked by RMIT FactLab. Chris Kenny. Former adviser to Liberal minister Alexander Downer. Paul Murray. Host of Paul Murray Live, now in its fifteenth year.

These are not news programs. They are opinion programs. Sky News Australia’s own press releases describe them as ‘opinion’. The distinction matters enormously when we discuss how this content reaches regional Australians, because they may not be making that distinction themselves.

In many regional areas, News24 Regional (formerly Sky News Regional) is the only commercial 24-hour news channel on free-to-air television. The other free 24-hour news channel is the ABC's.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This article said that in many regional areas Sky News Regional is the only dedicated 24-hour news channel on free-to-air television, and "not one of several news options". That was wrong: the ABC's 24-hour News channel is also free-to-air across regional Australia. Sky News Regional is the only commercial one. The opening and this section now say so. The opening also said access to Sky News behind the Foxtel paywall costs "$25 a month minimum"; we could not find a reliable source for that figure, and Foxtel prices and packages have changed, so it has been removed.

Correction, 16 October 2026. The subtitle, the pull quote and the hero image still said, or implied, that in much of regional and rural Australia the channel is your only available news channel, which this article corrected on 7 October: the ABC’s 24-hour News channel is also free-to-air there. The subtitle now says it is the only commercial news channel broadcasting free all day, the pull quote uses the channel’s current name, and the hero image no longer places the ABC channel only under cities.

02How it got into regional living rooms

Sky News Regional, the free-to-air version, began as Sky News on WIN in September 2018 and relaunched under the Sky News Regional name on 1 August 2021. The timing was remarkable: the relaunch fell inside the one-week YouTube suspension of Sky News Australia’s channel for posting COVID-19 misinformation, a strike YouTube says it issued on Thursday 29 July.

While Sky News was being sanctioned by YouTube for content posing a ‘serious risk of egregious harm’, it was relaunching its free broadcast service to millions of regional Australians.

While Sky News was being sanctioned by a global technology platform for content it described as posing a ‘serious risk of egregious harm’, it was relaunching its free broadcast service to millions of regional Australians with no subscription barrier, no parental controls, and no competing alternative on the same spectrum.

In July 2025, Sky News and Network 10 signed a new multi-year agreement to continue the service. The channel now broadcasts free on Channel 56 across regional Victoria, southern NSW, and Queensland, and Channel 53 in northern NSW and the Gold Coast.

Correction, 16 October 2026. This section said Sky News Regional launched on 1 August 2021, the same day YouTube suspended Sky News Australia. Paramount’s July 2025 release says the channel began as Sky News on WIN in September 2018 and relaunched as Sky News Regional in August 2021, and CNN reports YouTube saying it issued the one-week strike on the Thursday before 2 August 2021, which was 29 July. The relaunch therefore fell during the suspension, not on the day it began. The section, the key facts, the opening points and the figure now say so.

03The information equity problem

In Sydney, a viewer dissatisfied with Sky News can choose from multiple free-to-air news services, paid streaming platforms, and a wide range of digital outlets. The ABC’s services are strong, local newspapers still operate, and internet access to national and international journalism is generally reliable.

In many regional and rural communities, the media ecosystem is thinner. Local newspapers have been hollowed out over two decades of consolidation. Regional television newsrooms have been gutted. Internet access, particularly in more remote areas, is slower and more expensive.

Into this information gap, Sky News Regional has positioned itself as ‘an essential news service for regional Australians’, the words of Sky News Australia Chief Executive Paul Whittaker. The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, carrying a primetime lineup of News Corp opinion programming to communities that, in many cases, have no comparable free alternative.

04What regional Australians are being served

COVID misinformation. YouTube says it suspended Sky News Australia for one week on 29 July 2021 for posting videos that violated its COVID-19 misinformation policies. YouTube said the content posed a ‘serious risk of egregious harm in contradiction with local and global health authority guidance’. Multiple Sky segments questioned the existence of the pandemic and promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin as treatments.

Climate misinformation: a global hub. In June 2022, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a British thinktank focused on disinformation research, found that Sky News Australia was a key ‘content hub’ for climate science deniers and delayers globally. The ISD described Sky News Australia as having a ‘disproportionate contribution to global climate misinformation’.

One example cited: a tweet from Canadian climate denier Patrick Moore promoting a Sky News segment (in which then-host Alan Jones described youth climate activists as ‘selfish, badly educated virtue-signalling little turds’) was retweeted 16,000 times. Sky News content was functioning as source material for international climate denial networks.

Far-right platforming. In August 2018, Sky News Australia gave a platform to Blair Cottrell, the leader of United Patriots Front (a far-right neo-Nazi organisation), in a one-to-one discussion about immigration. In December 2020, host Rowan Dean promoted the Great Reset conspiracy theory. In February 2021, American far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones used Sky News segments to support his claims.

Correction, 16 October 2026. This section said YouTube suspended Sky News Australia on 1 August 2021. CNN, reporting YouTube’s account on 2 August 2021, says the strike was issued the Thursday before, which was 29 July 2021. The text now attributes the date to YouTube: the CNN report relays YouTube’s account of a strike issued ‘last Thursday’, not shown to be a date in Australian time.

05A tale of two Australias

There is a profound irony at the heart of the Sky News Regional model. The audiences most exposed to its content are the audiences with the least capacity to contextualise or counterbalance it.

Regional Australians generally have lower digital literacy rates, higher rates of internet access poverty, lower media plurality, and, crucially, greater reliance on free-to-air television as their primary news source. They are also, as a cohort, more likely to vote in closely contested regional electorates that determine federal election outcomes.

A Sydney viewer who encounters a Bolt segment on climate change has immediate access to counterpoint: the ABC, the Guardian, SMH, The Age, SBS News. A viewer in Griffith, Tamworth, Ballarat, or Bundaberg, watching the same segment on their free-to-air television, may not have that context. They may be watching because it is the only news channel available.

The geographic overlap between Sky News Regional’s broadcast footprint and Australia’s most marginal regional electorates is not a coincidence of map-reading.

The audiences most exposed to Sky News Regional’s content are the audiences with the least capacity to contextualise or counterbalance it.

06The rebrand nobody is talking about: News24

In February 2026, News Corp Australia announced that Sky News Australia would be rebranded as ‘News24’ by the end of the year. The reason: the brand licensing agreement with Sky Limited (the UK company that originally owned the Sky News name) was expiring and was not renewed. The channel now broadcasts as News24, and its free-to-air regional service as News24 Regional.

The reason Sky Limited did not renew is instructive. Sky News in the United Kingdom is owned by Comcast and operates under British broadcasting regulations that require impartial news coverage. Sky News Australia, since its acquisition by News Corp, has increasingly broadcast conservative opinion content. The editorial directions have diverged so far that the UK parent no longer wants its brand on the Australian product.

Read that again. The UK company that originally launched Sky News, a company that must meet legally enforceable impartiality standards under British broadcasting law, has decided it no longer wants to be associated with what Sky News Australia has become.

On this article’s reading, the rebrand to News24 changed the name, not the content: it gave a News Corp opinion channel a name that sounds more like a news service.

The UK company that originally launched Sky News has decided it no longer wants to be associated with what Sky News Australia has become.

Correction, 16 October 2026. This section said Sky News Australia was to be rebranded News24 and that its brand licence would not be renewed. The rebrand has happened. skynews.com.au now redirects to news24.com.au, and the News24 Regional page there describes the free-to-air regional channel as News24 Regional, broadcast across Network 10’s regional licence areas and available on Channel 56. The section, the opening, the opening points and the key facts now say the channel is called News24 and its regional service News24 Regional, formerly Sky News Regional.

07The rort

Sky News Australia is, in Australian cities, an expensive opinion channel for politically engaged conservatives. That is a legitimate product in a media market. People are entitled to pay for content that reflects their views.

Sky News Regional, now News24 Regional, is something different. It is a free-to-air channel, broadcasting on public spectrum to communities with limited media alternatives as their primary dedicated news service, that has been found by independent researchers to be a global hub for climate misinformation and by the world’s largest video platform to be distributing content posing a risk of real-world public health harm.

The UK company whose name it carried has decided it no longer wants its brand associated with the Australian product’s editorial direction. It has since been rebranded as News24, a name designed to sound like news, worn by a product that its own heritage organisation considers too far from journalism to share a name with.

Three million regional Australians will keep watching it. Most of them will not know any of this.

That is the regional capture. And that is The Rort’s job to say plainly.

If it’s a rort, we cover it.

Correction, 16 October 2026. This section said Sky News Regional is a free-to-air channel and that it would soon be rebranded as News24. The channel has since been rebranded; the section now says Sky News Regional is now News24 Regional, and speaks of the rebrand in the past tense. The name changed. The claims in this section about the channel’s content and reach are unchanged.