This month, Yousra Elbagir, Sky News’s Africa correspondent, garnered millions of views on TikTok and hundreds of thousands on YouTube for her hard-hitting reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
For her boss, David Rhodes, Elbagir represents the future for a traditional TV channel facing an existential threat as audiences move online: original journalism, a big name reporter and the skills to engage digitally with an especially young audience. Also — crucially — journalism that can be packaged for digital platforms that might one day enable the media group to actually make money.
Sky News has never turned a profit in its 36-year history. “Not a single day,” says Rhodes, a well travelled US cable news veteran who worked at CBS, Bloomberg and Fox before being appointed to head Sky News Group in 2023 by its US parent Comcast.
“I’ve been going from town to town,” the executive says. He previously worked at profitable news organisations, which had “some big, lucrative activity that’s going away, and they’re trying to figure out how to replace it.” Sky News presents a different challenge. “This one never had that. This one was never that. So the expectations of the company are a bit different.”
Rhodes this month set out a new strategy aimed at saving Sky News from a potentially terminal decline as a broadcaster, as more of its audience — and particularly younger viewers — watch video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok rather than traditional TV channels, and listen to podcasts rather than radio.
He wants to fundamentally shift from a free-to-air UK broadcaster — Sky News was Britain’s first 24-hour news channel — into a global digital provider of premium — and paid-for — content.
This means moving the focus away from its core TV channel to digital platforms, such as YouTube or its own Sky app, which offer new ways to make revenue from advertising, sponsorship and paywalled content. “Linear TV as a category and linear TV monetisation is falling dramatically,” Rhodes warns, reflecting on the future of UK broadcast news.
One of his big challenges in the transformation will be convincing the 750 staff across bureaus from London to Beijing that their future lies not in the analogue TV past but in his vision of the future of Sky News. It will bring sweeping changes for staff, from cameramen who provide the rolling footage for the news channel, to presenters and reporters used to filing their work for TV.
“If I’m a camera operator working principally on foreign, how does this impact me?” says Rhodes. “They’re very different from somebody in the newsroom managing the social media accounts.”
Given the urgency of his plans — Comcast guaranteed funding for Sky News as part of its takeover in 2018, with an annual budget of about £100mn, but these commitments will end in 2028 — his work to inform and discuss with staff began this month. He hosted a large “town hall” meeting with staff in London and then a roadshow around various teams. The smaller groups were especially important to address specific concerns about roles, he says.
Sky News insiders say concerns have been raised about the future of some of these teams, with staff who provide the linear channel with TV content worried about their jobs. Rhodes is careful to say the plan is not about cost cutting or job losses, but inside Sky there is recognition many roles will at least need to change.
Rhodes, who has named the strategy Sky News 2030 to look beyond a date some analysts see as cliff edge for the broadcaster, says all in the newsroom have had the same message: how can their roles fit the new strategy.
“I talked about adapting, and how we all need to adapt, and looking at the messaging around premium: like, ‘what I’m doing, does it have a premium aspect to it? Is it a video first’? If I work on a podcast, what does the podcast look like? What do I think about the video? Is it built for a digital future?”
In practice, he sees this as keeping an open mind on jobs. “The biggest mistake we can make is if colleagues conflate video with linear television. ‘I’m a television producer’ — no, you’re a producer. [Or] ‘I’m a digital reporter’. Well, no, you’re a reporter. You might be asked to do that in a variety of ways.”
He says some of these conversations have been “really encouraging”, such as camera crews asking about new technology and techniques.
One bureau chief told him after the presentation that it was good the company was “gripping” the rapid changes in the industry. “Nobody’s surprised to know that the industry has gone through a lot of changes, they just want to know [how we are going to] grip it.”
One editorial source said that others were more fearful, however. “This could be tough”. Analysts also see a hard battle for profitability as Sky News competes for digital audiences against the world’s largest tech companies, as well as more traditional rivals such as CNN, GB News and the BBC also making similar moves online.
Rhodes can see different digital platforms converging — “podcasts are going to look more like TV and video production, and TV and video production is going to look and sound more like podcasts” — which require different skills and ideas.
But he also says some in the industry can get too carried away in predicting the pace of change. Rhodes points out that many podcasts have similar content and are filmed in a similar way as a traditional TV show: “There’s usually a narrative about how no one’s going to do the old thing, because they’re all doing the new thing. But the new thing is usually a lot like the old, but maybe it’s delivered in a different way, it’s paid for in a different way.”
Rhodes wants to rebuild Sky News around a series of “verticals” of subject matter helmed by its big-draw journalists — for example, politics, where Beth Rigby has built up a loyal and large following and where people are willing to pay to watch and listen to podcasts and subscribe to newsletters.
Rhodes admits there will need to be some big name hires to fill a schedule that will be based on individual talent and their followings.
“We have some building blocks. We’re going to need more, and we know that, but that’s an exciting challenge to have. We have some of what we need. Are we going to need some others? Definitely.”
The need for household names is also becoming more acute with the departure of some of Sky News’s longest serving presenters, including business presenter Ian King and Kay Burley, who was part of the team that launched the channel in 1989 but announced her decision to leave this month.
“You need personalities to build these things around but part of that conversation is like: this is going to be Sky News 2030 [so] this is going to take a minute. It’s gonna be some work. It’s been 36 years, she [Burley] just found herself ready to retire.”
Previous owners have seen Sky News as useful leverage with politicians in talks about regulation or as a marketing tool, but Rhodes says of Comcast: “They want us to make money. But we want us to make money. We talk a lot about being independent. What makes you independent is that you can pay your own way.”
He says Sky News will remain a “mass brand”, with a “public service aspect” that will mean there will always be a free to air channel but with resources shifted to premium content. Breaking and live TV news will be less of a priority in a reorganisation of the newsroom. About 30 per cent of Sky News is currently “premium” journalism, rather than live and breaking TV, which he wants to increase to 70 per cent by 2030.
“I don’t think that people will pay for the broad proposition all at once,” he says. But within that, he adds, “there’s just communities of interest that you can build to get back to mass”.
The audience will also have to be led to where Sky News sees its future. “Everybody’s expecting this to be free,” says Rhodes, “but the first thing you have to do is you have to actually believe in your offering. You have to actually believe that what you’re doing has value. What is it that we’re doing that no one else can do?”
A day in the life of David Rhodes
0600 I wake up and go running. It’s a constant since I was a kid. You can run anywhere — almost. On a trip to North Korea I didn’t get past the perimeter of the foreign ministry guest house — about 200 yards.
Morning When I can, I go to the high street for everything my news agent Maqsood can stock. My wife Emma and I have two teenage boys — it takes both of us to get them up. Sometimes we even get them to read the papers.
1300 Lunch out was important in New York. It’s the only city where you want to sit near the front of the restaurant. Now, Sky has a terrific West London headquarters which is convenient to Heathrow — but not restaurants. It’s a good excuse to work through the midday meal.
Afternoon I’m on the phone a lot. WhatsApp is great for business and the “family chat” with our kids. But phone calls are a dying art. Call anyone without an appointment and they think you’re reporting a medical emergency. Mid-afternoon in Britain is a safe time to call anywhere in the world. I use that.
8pm No ordinary night exists in the news business. Added to which Emma says I got more social as a snapback to Covid. We all feel lucky to be out in the world: there’s London’s theatre, food, art and people. But we always try to keep family Sunday night dinners at home — a good reset.
