ABU DHABI — Sky is exiting its television news joint venture with the United Arab Emirates, relinquishing all strategic and operational ownership of Sky News Arabia. The company will retain a multi-year brand licensing deal allowing the channel to keep its name.
Sky and its partner, International Media Investments (IMI), announced the new commercial arrangement. Under the agreement, IMI will assume full control over the platform’s future operations and editorial direction. Sky executives have grown increasingly concerned about the editorial position Sky News Arabia has taken on regional news coverage, particularly regarding the war in Sudan.
Sky News Arabia has faced criticism for its reporting on atrocities committed in Sudan by the UAE-backed paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The channel filed reports and published online articles asserting there was no on-the-ground evidence to support satellite imagery or survivor testimony documenting mass violence. In February, a UN-mandated fact-finding mission concluded that the siege, capture and 18-month occupation of El Fasher by the RSF and allied militias deliberately targeted the destruction of ethnic minority communities with “the hallmarks of genocide.”
In November, the Sudanese government banned the channel from operating inside the country after it aired a report from El Fasher claiming the security and humanitarian situation had stabilized. The reporter who filed the segment is married to a senior official in the RSF’s parallel government.
David Rhodes, the executive chair of Sky News Group, said: "We are proud of what has been built through our partnership with IMI over the years and the presence built throughout the region. The time is right for this change and we look forward to continuing our relationship in the next phase of Sky News Arabia."
Nakhle Elhage, the chief transformation officer at IMI, said: "As we enter this next phase, IMI will take full ownership of the platform’s future with the agility, focus and investment capacity to continue building the leading multimedia news destination for the Arab world. Sky News Arabia today stands as one of the Arab world’s leading media success stories. Over the past decade it has built scale, trust and relevance across television, digital, audio and social platforms, reaching audiences at a pace few media organisations in the region have achieved."
Sky News Arabia was launched in 2010 as a rival to other Arabic-language news outlets such as Al Jazeera and the BBC World Service’s News Arabic. The channel began broadcasting across the Middle East and North Africa in 2012 under a joint venture originally struck by News Corporation, which at the time controlled Sky.