Digital Migration Hits The U.K.

If you thought that the cord-cutting trend is just confined to the United States – it’s not.

It’s happening at breathtaking speed throughout the world.

The biggest English language media base after the United States is also experiencing a huge step forward in digital migration.

How do know that?

Take a look at their linear flagship media company Sky.

They are drowning financially and have taken the hacksaw out to cut in large chunks.

Sky is planning to cut about 2,000 jobs in the UK in 2025, as the media group moves towards more internet-based services. They fired 1,000 people last year. BBC is also going through a similar type of change.

It is understood a significant number will be engineers, as fewer people require satellite dishes to be installed at home.

Sky currently employs about 26,000 people in the UK.

Sky has been shifting its strategy since it was bought by the US media giant Comcast for more than £30bn in 2018.

The British broadcaster wants digital revenues - which accounted for 27% of its total last year - to pass 50% by 2030.

It comes as Sky News tries to reverse a slump in audience due to the plummeting content quality of legacy media stations.

This has forced many subscribers to ditch Sky and go with higher-quality content platforms and channels.

Sky is racking up losses which total in the 100’s of millions pounds PER YEAR, and the hard question of what is the point of paying these high-profile personalities and expensive international assignments when they just drive the audience away?

The same could be said about CNN’s decision to demote media activist Jim Acosta who was unceremoniously downgraded to CNNs worst time slot yesterday.

He resigned instead announcing his resignation on air and clearly couldn’t accept a lesser role at his company.

With the losses in revenue staggering, for some reason, US media giant Comcast guaranteed to maintain the funding commitments until 2028.

Then there is the intense question of whether there will be a Sky after 2028, because at that point, who will be left watching it?

Comcast has already taken an $8.6bn write-down on its investment in Sky.

Staff at Sky News are preparing to unionize in protest against pay and working conditions.

It is understood that a group of employees at the channel have held preliminary talks with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) about joining the group.

Attempting to unionize will cause the acceleration of firings from legacy media, but it demonstrates the extreme level of desperation at these dinosaur channels.

The future of Sky News, which is led by veteran Murdoch executive David Rhodes, is likely to be on the agenda amid ongoing budget discussions between Sky and Comcast.

Part of the massive changes the world is grappling with is how this new digital media fits into how we live everyday life.

Instead of corporate entities giving us what they think is the “truth,” media has fractured off into individuals doing their own version of media.

Much of this new media is accessed for free on platforms that only require a free signup.

Is it almost impossible for corporate media to compete with free content, especially when corporate media is one of the lowest forms of quality content available to the public?

If X.com was still a private company, then that is the best social media stock available. TikTok is a private company owned by the Chinese. YouTube is one of the platforms I am talking about, but that is part of a bigger company in Google.