You can call it a soft launch, but Sky News Australia’s new dedicated New Zealand newscast go off to a shocker.

Ratings figures showed just 1500 people nationally aged 5 or more tuned in to the Sky News NZ Evening News debut at 7pm on Monday – or 0.1 per cent of viewers.

Critics called the half-hour bulletin, fronted by newsreader Eric Young, “shoestring” and the “poor relation” of free-to-air TV news programmes One News and 3 News.

If Sky News NZ is as successful as the most watched UK news channel which captures @0.6% share overall, it will reach 9,000 New Zealanders. Now that’s what I call narrowcasting.