FAILING Sky News has lost 37% of its audience since 2012, Politicalite can reveal.
According to Statisa, The former 24-hour news heavyweight has seen its audience slide significantly since the early 2010s after a studio move and a shift to a less right-wing tabloid format.
Sky News has also taken on a Remain tone, and was accused of anti-Brexit bias after regular slots for ‘extreme Remainers’
The channel was launched in June 1988 by Rupert Murdoch, who used to have a knack for what Britons were thinking.
The channel was Britain’s first ever 24-hour news channel, for years was the go-to destination whenever major news broke, often faster than BBC News 24 that launched in 1997.
Sky copied the same format as the Nine O’Clock News on the BBC, which had been redesigned in the late eighties to give the impression of activity and immediacy by placing the newsreader against a backdrop of the working newsroom.
The critics were mildly taken aback. Contrary to some of the horror scenarios bandied about by the snooty chattering classes, there seemed to be little to grumble about. And as its slogan of ‘We’re there when you need us,’ emphasised, it was always on.
Lord William Whitelaw said in the House of Lords in 1990 that Sky News had “a very high reputation … I admire it, as do many other people, it will certainly waken up both the BBC and ITN and ensure that they compete with what is a very important news service”.
Last year, Sky News moved from its grand bustling newsroom to a small, bland, white glass box, signifying its decline to small-scale irrelevance.
At least 60 studio staff also left Sky News and Sky Sports News or faced redundancy from the channel in recent months due to its move to new studios.