“The talented and dedicated Sky News Ireland team has produced a high quality product, some outstanding journalism and attracted a loyal audience.” [DS]

Someone from Sky network might say exactly the same thing when they shut down Sky News. It is a highly professional operation and has produced some excellent journalism, but it has failed to find an audience. Investment needs to be refocused.

Sky News Ireland, like Sky News, was never an investment that was going to generate a return.

Things are very different in the United States where CNN is still the most profitable of the cable news channels. Fox News is snapping hard at its heels. One of Fox’s ongoing problems has been that it was locked into long-term cable agreements at very low prices when it started. Those agreements are now coming to an end, and Fox is scaling its fees up three and fourfold. With increased advertising revenues coming in, that should spell profitability for Fox – just as the tide of public sympathy turns against its editorial cheerleading. Bear in mind though, that Fox’s very considerable start-up costs have probably yet to be recouped.

What’s good for Fox is bad news for CNN. CNN got to charge a premium ten years ago on its licence fees, as the only real show in town. Still CNN might just drop a slot – it won’t stop making money.

This might once have been the story for Sky News. When it began, it was alone in a field of one. But then the BBC introduced a news channel that meant Sky News couldn’t really charge for carriage. Even ITN, one of the most cost-effective newsgathering operations anywhere in the world, discovered that up against the BBC they couldn’t make the numbers work. Their news channel succumbed too.

Reduced competition in 24-hour news is the market impact of BBC intervention. Reviewing the coverage of 7/7 recently, I was reminded how well both Sky News and the ITV news channel performed that day. Only the politics of shutting their channel down prevented ITN from entering the coverage for awards.

When or if Sky decides that the revenue game is lost in 24-hour news, will we get the same absence of public outcry that followed ITV’s decision? If we accept the BBC’s charter renewal argument that news is a public good, and we accept too that competition is healthy then there’s a case for arguing that just as on good old-fashioned terrestrial TV, news should be a requirement – and it should be properly funded.