Sky News Australia goes viral overseas. Plus: Nine greenlights Melissa Caddick drama two days after her remains found
Sky News Australia’s
YouTube channel now has more subscribers than ABC News: 1.31m to Aunty’s 1.129m. When your best prime-time show, Andrew Bolt’s, regularly has about 80,000 viewers that’s impressive. The Murdoch platform may have chief political reporter Kieran Gilbert front and centre of the publicity photos but the channel’s popularity has nothing to do with news.
The secret to Sky’s success online is provocative rightwing commentary. When News Corp journo Miranda Devine told host Paul Murray this week that US president
Joe Biden had a “cognitive impairment” without providing any evidence, it went viral. That clip – “Joe Biden needs help from Jill Biden as he is ‘cognitively impaired’” – got 1.2m views in two days. Although Sky is a subscription channel, anyone can watch the YouTube videos for free.