MEDIA RELEASE: Monday July 19, 2021
REAL NEWS, HONEST VIEWS. SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA AUDIENCE STUDY
Understanding the dynamic relationship Australians have with news and the role of Sky News Australia
skynews.com.au/audiencestudy
Sky News today released the findings of its 2021 Sky News Australia Audience Study which asked consumers** about their news preferences and habits, revealing more than 9.1 million Australians engage with Sky News each month.
Throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic the appetite for news has skyrocketed as Australians sought out credible and accurate information from trusted sources. The Sky News Australia Audience Study examined the news habits of Australians and the role of Sky News Australia, to learn which sources they turn to for news and from what selection of platforms across television, radio, podcasts, newspapers, online sites, news search, digital video, and social media.
As Sky News Australia celebrates its 25th year, the news service is delivering a significant and growing audience across its platforms, holding the #1 news brand position on the two largest social media platforms Facebook and YouTube, and the #1 channel position on Foxtel in 2020.i This study sought to better understand Sky News’ growing contribution and position within the overall Australian news landscape.
Paul Whittaker, Chief Executive, Sky News Australia said: “As Sky News Australia marks its 25th year, the audience study provided an opportunity to delve into the Australian news market and really get to know our audience, to understand how they access our news platforms and what’s really important to them when searching for reliable, accurate and balanced news sources.”
The key findings include:
• Sky News reaches one third of all Australians every month. Sky News reaches a monthly unique audience of 9.1 million Australians, and on average, each month they access Sky News on two platforms.
• More than one quarter (26 percent) of all people engaging with Sky News are doing so via the Foxtel platform, and 74 percent of people are engaging with Sky News content across other platforms from its digital network such as SkyNews.com.au and on Sky News Australia’s YouTube channel.
• Sky News has the most active and engaged digital audience in Australia. Of those who consider Sky News to be their main source of news, Sky News leads the pack in digital engagement outperforming key competitors with viewers accessing SkyNews.com.au (78 percent), Sky News YouTube (54 percent), and Sky News Facebook (40 percent).
• The average Sky News viewer age is 46 years old across all its platforms, which is driven by younger audiences accessing digital platforms more frequently than older viewers. Paul Whittaker continued: “This research shows Australians are accessing their news from a wide variety of sources across a wide variety of media and the use of digital platforms is growing as generations consume news differently. Sky News is meeting the need for each generation across all platforms and it’s evident that investment in our digital strategy and our exclusive news, commentary and analysis content is resonating with more Australians than ever before.”
In addition, the report found Sky News viewers have a higher propensity to purchase across all key categories compared with non-Sky News viewers, and are more receptive to advertising:
• Sky News main viewers are significantly over-indexing for purchase consideration across all categories including financial services, banking, automotive and household goods.
• Sky News main viewers are a more responsive audience for advertisers; of Sky News viewers 51 percent actively support program sponsors, and 36 percent state they take more notice of advertising while watching Sky News.
Sky News Australia Commercial Director Cathryn Adams said: “A key purpose of this study is to quantify and understand the value and benefit for our partners in producing cross-platform integrated content partnerships.
“By being integrated within programming like The Alliance, Paul Murray Live Our Town, Business Weekend or Racing Dreams, our partners are accessing a much broader audience than the original TV broadcast - and reaching, younger, highly engaged Australians who are passionate about Sky News Australia and actively support sponsors.”
Hoop Group Director Liz Farquharson said: “In looking at the reach numbers, it’s clear the multiple platform strategy by Sky News is behind the delivery of its ability to reach an impressive 9.1m Australians per month”.
“The suite of Sky News platforms meets the needs of the evolving news consumer and in turn has grown total engagement with the category.”
“The scale of the study has allowed us to profile the unique characteristics of a highly motivated Sky News viewer and define the opportunities for advertisers for a more targeted approach.”
For more information and further research findings visit www.skynews.com.au/audiencestudy
** Sky News Australia commissioned Hoop Research Group to conduct a large-scale Audience Study. The national survey consisted of n=6965 Australians aged 18-75. Age, gender and region quotas were applied to the sample and all final data was weighted to reflect the latest ABS population estimates as well as presence of Foxtel. The findings in this document are the result of a survey conducted by Hoop Group across April/May 2021 where the survey was used to fill gaps in actual currency data for the same period, and provide the basis for deduplication calculations. Final reach figures validated by Audience Research. Contents of this report may be reproduced provided appropriate credit is given to the source. Sky News Australia Audience Study, Hoop Group 2021.
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About Sky News The Sky News channels are operated by Australian News Channel Pty Ltd and include Sky News, Sky News Weather, Sky News Extra, Sky News UK, FOX SPORTS News and Australia Channel for international audiences. Australian News Channel is owned by News Corp Australia, a subsidiary of News Corp.
i Source: OzTAM National STV, Linear data, Overnight, Wk 1-52, Total People. Channel rank is based on TTL TV Share average across the year.