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Home»Archive»Sky Sports News to be free to view for one day only

Sky Sports News to be free to view for one day only

29 September 2023

To mark 25 years of broadcasting, Sky Sports News will be free to view for a limited time.

  • Sky Sports News first launched in 1998 as the UK’s only rolling sports news channel.
  • To celebrate its 25th, the channel will be available for free on YouTube and the Sky Sports app for a 12 hour period on 2nd October.
  • Viewers are promised a line-up of “special guests” visiting the channel’s newly refurbished studio.

Sports fans, including non-Sky Sports subscribers across the UK will be able to watch all the news and reaction from the weekend’s sport which includes a Ryder Cup, Premier League football, Rugby World Cup, the return of the Women’s Super League and more when Sky Sports News streams for free on Monday 2nd October.

Viewers will also notice appearances from some special guests, all live from the refurbished state-of-the-art Sky Sports News studio.

▶️ How to watch Sky Sports News for free

  • Sky Sports News will be free-to-view through Sky Sports on YouTube and the Sky Sports App.
  • The freebie runs from 07:00-19:00 on Monday 2nd October.

We’ve used the term free-to-view, rather than “free-to-air” used in the publicity as the channel won’t be truly free-to-air under the strict definition of the term. Sky Sports News won’t broadcast unencrypted on satellite or terrestrial platforms.


The channel officially launched on 1st October 1998 as part of the launch of Sky Digital. Tests were seen before then.

Throughout its life on air, Sky Sports News has remained the destination for breaking sports news across the UK. Mike Wedderburn and Kelly Cates were the first faces on Sky Sports screens for the first broadcast in 1998 and continue their work across Sky Sports News and Sky Sports more broadly 25 years on, alongside a whole host of new talent and leading broadcasters and presenters.

Sky Sports News stats

In 25 years, there have been…

  • over 154,700 broadcast hours…
  • …involving 100,000 Sky Sports News crews who have reported from across the world,
  • 49 deadline days
  • approximately 25,000 Premier League goals

History facts

Between 2002 and 2010, Sky Sports News was freely available 24/7 on Freeview.

Faced with increased competition in 2010, Sky scrambled to boost its pay TV service by removing the previously free Sky Sports News and developing new channels like Sky Atlantic, which launched the following year. With the switch to pay TV, Sky promised improvements to the service, plus the launch of an HD service.

In its 25 year history, Sky Sports News has had a couple of name changes. In 2000 it became “SkySports.com TV” for a short period. Then in 2014, Sky rebranded the channel “Sky Sports News HQ”. This was undone three years later in 2017 when Sky revamped its sports channels.

Corporate comment

Director of Sky Sports News, Mark Alford, commented:

“It’s a landmark year for us in Sky Sports News. We’re celebrating our 25th birthday from a fully refurbished state-of-the-art studio and broadcast gallery. So many brilliant journalists and technical professionals have been instrumental in the ever-evolving success and innovation of this news organisation. We’re immensely proud to bring people sports news they can trust, first and fast. And that’s why you’ll find Sky Sports News rolling on the screens in gyms, pubs and clubs throughout the UK and Ireland and our content being consumed on millions of mobile phones across the world.”


Marc Thornham

[Stats provided by Sky Sports]

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