Sky first aired in 1989, captained by Rupert Murdoch’s News International. It was the UK’s first satellite TV service and, initially, it only had four free-to-air channels. Sky News was a novelty as well since it was Europe’s first 24-hour news channel.
The year 2018 marked a change in ownership for Sky, which passed onto US media giant Comcast. However, Sky News continues to be a stable and busy channel, even though it has been going through some changes too. For instance, at the end of 2022, the head of Sky News John Ryley announced he would step down in spring 2023, after covering this role since 2006. To take his place was Jonathan Levy, former Sky News head of newsgathering.
Ryley managed a bustling team of journalists and presenters, who start as early as 5am and roll throughout the night. As of April 2023, these are the main Sky News hosts.
[See also: Dermot Murnaghan to leave Sky News after 16 years]
Related
Who are the Sky News presenters?
Kay Burley
Award-winning journalist and broadcaster Kay Burley has been around at Sky since the channel was born in 1989. Before joining the broadcaster, however, Burley worked for BBC and Tyne Tees Television and then became a night reporter for TV-am in 1985.
Born in Wigan in 1960, Burley knew she wanted to be a journalist from a very young age and started her career aged 17 at the Lancashire Evening Post.
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Over her 30 years at Sky Burley has covered major stories like Princess Diana’s death and the 2015 Iraq invasion. The presenter’s live coverage of 9/11 won Sky News a Bafta.
Today, she has her own show called Kay Burley which airs every weekday from 7am until 10 am.
As a side hustle, Burley is also a published author. She wrote two erotic romance books in 2011 and 2012, titled First Ladies and Betrayal, respectively.
Kamali Melbourne
Journalist Kamali Melbourne has been in the industry for over a decade. Starting his career as a foreign news reporter on Channel 4, Melbourne also worked for outlets like Bloomberg and BBC.
As well as working for TRT World since 2015, Melbourne now covers the early morning slot on Sky News from 5am until 7 am with the show The Early Rundown.
Ian King
Ian King obtained a history degree in Manchester and then a postgraduate diploma in newspaper journalism at City, University of London. After spending four years working for banks like HSBC and Midland Bank, from 1989 until 1993, he decided to pursue a journalism career.
After working for The Sun, The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph, King joined Sky News in 2014 as a business presenter. His show, Ian King Live, airs every weekday from 10am until 11am and focuses on interviewing and offering coverage of the biggest names in finance and economics.
In 2015 King swore on air by mistake during an interview with economist Michelle Meyer. After the introduction, King was heard shouting “f***” while off-camera.
[See also: Who are GB News’ presenters? Everything you need to know]
Jayne Secker
Born and bred in Burlington, Northumberland, Jayne Secker has journalism in her DNA. Her mother is Kathy Secker, Tyne Tees Television broadcaster. Kathy was also known for being a BBC Radio Newcastle presenter, where she hosted a Sunday afternoon dedications show, which went on until November 2015, two weeks before her death.
Jayne Secker graduated from the University of Stirling, where she edited the student newspaper and attended an internship at BBC Radio Newcastle.
In 2009, the journalist joined Sky News after more than a decade as a correspondent for the BBC. Her work has included reporting extensively from the Middle East, such as stories on the withdrawal of settlers from Gaza and the Iraq War, during which she was broadcasting live while tomahawk missiles were fired over Baghdad.
Jayne Secker’s coverage and stories, especially about the Soham murders in 2002, were part of the reason Sky News won a Bafta.
Today, Secker covers the 11am to 1pm and 1pm to 2pm slots on Sky News, respectively presenting Sky News Today and Sky News at One.
Sarah-Jane Mee
Born in Birmingham in 1978, Sarah-Jane Mee is the anchor of the Sarah-Jane Mee Show, which airs every weekday from 2pm until 5pm.
In her twenties, Mee graduated from the University of Manchester and joined Sky Sports straight after as a runner and then producer.
In 2002, she presented a sports show on Central News West, before joining ITV. The journalist also worked in radio, specifically Heart FM, before going back to Sky in 2009. Mee remained at Sky Sports until 2019 when she became one of the main anchors of Sky News.
Following the death of the Queen, Sarah-Jane Mee garnered controversy when she mistook a Chris Kaba march in Trafalgar Square for royal crowds mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II while on air. After her mistake, Mee apologised on Twitter: “I made a mistake on air, I wrongly identified crowds in Trafalgar Square as some of the 1000s heading to Palace when at the moment it was people turning out for Chris Kaba.”
She continued: “I’d like to personally apologise to those involved. We are covering the march and its significance later today.”
Niall Paterson
Niall Paterson is a weekend breakfast presenter on Sky News, hosting the Sky News Daily Podcast.
In his early life, Paterson graduated with a degree in Criminology and Law at the University of Sheffield, as well as a Diploma from Northern Media School for Broadcast Journalism.
Paterson has worked at Sky News since 2004 when he started out on the contract desks before becoming a producer. He has covered the positions of political correspondent, defence correspondent, media and technology correspondent and new correspondent.
Beth Rigby
Beth Rigby was born in Colchester and grew up in Buckinghamshire. The journalist graduated from Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge in social and political science and then achieved a Master’s Degree in economics at the University of London.
After spending the first part of her career in Portugal as an English teacher, she joined the Financial Times as a graduate trainee in 1998.
Rigby then became a political correspondent at the Financial Times in 2010 and joined The Times as media editor in 2015, before switching to Sky News as a senior political correspondent in 2016. She was promoted to political editor in 2019.
Since March 2022 Rigby has hosted a weekly interview show at 9pm on Thursdays, called Beth Rigby Interviews… with “decision takers from all walks of life”.
Mark Austin
Portsmouth-native journalist Mark Austin has a rich and intense career. He is best known as the former co-anchor for the ITV Evening News and ITV News at Ten, as he worked at the channel for over 30 years.
Since he joined Sky News in 2018, Austin has covered various roles, such as hosting The News Hour with Mark Austin, which airs Monday to Thursday from 5pm until 7pm.
In most recent times, the experienced journalist covered the news of the first day of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, reporting live from Kyiv. The Ukraine war is not the first conflict Austin reported on: he was called upon to report and anchor shows from Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia and Kuwait among others.
Anna Botting
Anna Botting, born and bred in Surrey, is now a Sky News presenter on Sky News at Nine and Ten, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, alongside Paper Review. Botting comes from an accomplished family, as she is the daughter of explorer Douglas Botting and former broadcaster Louise Botting.
Botting’s career started out at Granada Television in Manchester, after achieving a geography degree from the University of Oxford and a journalism one from the University of Cardiff. She later joined the BBC in 1991. However, Botting’s talents did not stop at broadcasting. She even tried out acting, appearing in movies like The Ghost and Tomorrow.
[See also: Who are the BBC News presenters? Everything you need to know]
Gillian Joseph
Gillian Joseph was born in Coventry and obtained a degree and later a master’s in Broadcast Journalism at City, University of London.
Joseph has hosted the Sky News at Ten show on weekends since 2021 and, before that, she co-anchored Sky News Breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays. Today, she also alternates with Anna Botting in hosting Sky News at Nine, at Ten, and at 11, alongside Paper Review.
The journalist’s career, however, started in radio: Joseph began working as a radio reporter for BBC Radio Merseyside and then BBC Radio 1 in 1994. Until 2005, when she moved to Sky News, the broadcaster presented BBC London News.
Sophy Ridge
Sophy Ridge was born in Richmond Upon Thames in 1984, the child of two teachers. Ridge decided she wanted to be a journalist during her time at Tiffin Girls School in London, where she spent some time working at the local newspaper, Richmond and Twickenham Times.
With a degree in English Literature from Oxford on her shoulders, Ridge was able to obtain a place in a graduate scheme at News of the World. She started working on Sky News in 2011.
As a senior political correspondent, Ridge covered the general election in 2015 which led her to have her own show in 2017: Sophy Ridge on Sunday, which still airs today from 8.30am until 10am. Ridge also hosts The Take on Wednesdays, from 9pm to 10pm.
Trevor Phillips
British writer and journalist Sir Trevor Phillips is the youngest of ten children. His education was split between London and British Guiana, as he attended a grammar school in London but took his A-levels in Georgetown. Phillips later achieved a chemistry degree from the Imperial College in London.
At the start of his career, he worked for London Weekend Television until 1994, when he started working on a project for the BBC and Channel 4 – the documentary Windrush: The Irresistible Rise of Multi-Racial Britain (1998), which helped Phillips to win three Royal Television Society (RTS) awards.
Taking a break from his journalism career, Sir Phillips focused on his political one. In 1999 he ran for Mayor of London for the Labour Party but the race featured a few controversies with Ken Livingstone, the other candidate. Livingstone had offered Phillips an alliance, however, Phillips considered this offer “patronising”, and believed it was motivated by racism. Phillips felt targeted by Livingstone, and he later abandoned the race.
From 2021 until 2022 he covered Sunday mornings on Sky News for Sophy Ridge who was then on maternity leave.
Jonathan Samuels
Loughborough University graduate Jonathan Samuels has always wanted to be a news presenter, dressing up as one and recording from a box of cereal since he was little.
After leaving university, Samuels started his broadcast career at Channel 4, presenting the children’s show Wise Up, before attending a master’s in journalism and joining a BBC training scheme. At the end of the internship, he secured a permanent spot at BBC Look East.
In 2000, he joined Sky News as a reporter and then became Chief Correspondent for Channel 5 News. Today, he is a full-time Sky News presenter, conducting Press Review. During King Charles’s coronation, Samuels was in charge of reporting it live from the Mall.
Kimberley Leonard
Kimberley Leonard graduated from the University of Cape Town with a bachelor’s in Media and Film and then moved to the UK to study a master’s in international journalism at the University of Westminster.
After graduating in 2007, Leonard joined Arabian Radio Network as a news anchor and, in 2009, she switched to being an anchor and producer at Dubai Media Incorporated. After working there for five years, in 2014, Leonard started working for Al Jazeera Media Network as a producer, which allowed her to then become a presenter on Sky News in 2015.
Today, she is not only an anchor, but also a presenter for the channel’s breakfast and 10pm shows.
Tom Heap
Tom Heap today presents the Climate Show on Sky News, following his 25-year-old passion for climate and environment reporting.
However, he joined the channel in 1989, when he started as a sound man. He decided to go back to education shortly after joining the BBC, where he worked for the next two decades. Nowadays, Heap still reports for Countryfile on BBC1 and Costing the Earth on Radio 4.
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