Sky News Live

Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia logo
Launched	19 February 1996
Owned by	Australian News Channel (News Corp Australia)
Picture format	576i (SDTV 16:9) 1080i (HDTV)
Audience share	0.4% (January 2015, OzTam)
Slogan	Australia's News Channel
Country	Australia
Language	English
Sister channel(s)	Sky News Business Channel Sky News Weather Channel A-PAC
Website	www.skynews.com.au
Availability
Satellite
Foxtel	Channel 601 Channel 291 (HD)
SKY Network Television (NZ)	Channel 85
Cable
Foxtel	Channel 601 Channel 291 (HD)
Optus	Channel 601
Neighbourhood Cable	Channel 21
Vodafone TV (NZ)	Channel 85
IPTV
Xbox 360	Channel 601
Australia Channel	[2]

Sky News Australia (branded on air as Sky News Live, and until 18 January 2015 as Sky News National) is an Australian 24-hour cable and satellite news channel available in 2.5 million homes on the Foxtel and Optus Television subscription platforms. It is also available in New Zealand on Sky Television and Vodafone

Sky News Australia launched at 5pm on 19 February 1996, as the first Australian-produced television news channel. Sky News was added to Austar on 1 April 2000. In 2004, Sky News began broadcasting Sky News Active, its on-demand interactive TV news service. In 2008, Sky News launched the Sky News Business Channel, and on 20 January 2009, Sky News launched Australian Public Affairs Channel (A-PAC). It began widescreen broadcasting on 17 May 2009. Sky News Australia began broadcasting in high definition on 1 December 2015. A fourth spin-off channel, Sky News Election Channel, was launched on 1 May 2016.

Sky News Channel's parent company, Australian News Channel (ANC), was owned equally by British Sky Broadcasting, Seven Media Group and Nine Entertainment Co., each with a 33% stake in the company from its founding until December 2016, when it was acquired by News Corp Australia. The carriage deal between Australian News Channel and Foxtel is due to expire in 2017, reported as either February or December.

In 2013, Sky News Australia was granted A$20 million in funding from its parent company to be used over three years.

Until 2015, Sky News was responsible for producing New Zealand's Prime News - First at 5:30 from Sydney, hosted by Eric Young with filming taking place in Prime's Albany studios. It lost the contract to MediaWorks and subsequently ceased broadcasting a local New Zealand bulletin.