Heading into 2024, Sky News Australia has unveiled a number of high-profile changes to its lineup, with the biggest political event of the year — the upcoming US presidential election — inspiring new coverage for the outlet.
Conservative commentator Steve Price will get his own show, while Sharri Markson has been moved to a later time slot. Journalist Danica De Giorgio will host a new debate show, and chief election analyst Tom Connell will host a Canberra-focused analysis show called Politics Now, to air at 3.15pm during parliamentary sitting weeks.
Cheng Lei, who spent three years in a Chinese jail “on suspicion of supplying state secrets”, will also join the network as a presenter. Following her release in October last year, Lei said her incarceration included a “sophisticated form of torture”.
Steve Price gets his own show
Current News Corp columnist and Network 10 host Steve Price will anchor his own show on Friday nights, competing for half an hour directly with The Project on 10, which he currently hosts.
Price took to the pulpit of The Project this week as the annual culture wars around January 26 heat up, predictably calling on “South African” Woolworths (and German supermarket counterpart Aldi) to stop being woke and leave Australians to the business of being proud of Australia and celebrating Australia Day. Woolworths recently announced it would cease to stock Australia Day merchandise, citing dwindling market demand in recent years. Fellas, is it “woke” to respond to market trends?
Contrary to Price’s rant, Woolworths Group, which also owns department store chain Big W, does not have any relation to the South African luxury department chain of the same name.
The Project was contacted for comment.
Sharri Markson moves to later slot
Commentator Sharri Markson’s self-titled program, Sharri, has moved from her current 5pm time slot to 8pm, airing Mondays through Thursdays.
Of her move to the prime time slot Markson told The Daily Telegraph: “I’m striving for another year of breaking major news stories and holding the Albanese government to account.”
Markson has marked the shift further into Sky’s after-dark programming by declaring Penny Wong was “not [her] foreign minister”, after Wong’s itinerary while in Israel was revealed to not include a visit to the Southern Israel sites of the October 7 Hamas attacks.
Wong was due to meet with survivors of the attacks, as well as the Israeli foreign minister, before meeting with Palestinian Authority officials in the West Bank and heading to the UAE. She was also due to meet with Palestinian victims of Israeli settler violence, having described the violence as “the wrong thing to do”.
Markson, who went on a lobby-sponsored trip to Israel in 2015, described the itinerary as Wong “[turning] away from the bloodstained walls and floors where so many innocent Jewish families met their graves”.
“She does not represent us when she calls for restraint,” Markson said.
The Jury is out
Journalist Danica De Giorgio will host a new program called The Jury, to air at 8pm on Sunday nights over a 10-week season, starting February 4. De Giorgio will act as a moderator in a debate between guests in front of a live studio audience, after which a 12-person jury will vote on who they believe has won the argument.
The jury will reportedly be made up of “everyday Aussies … from all walks of life”.
De Giorgio recently led Sky’s coverage of the ascension of King Frederik X of Denmark to the throne, following the abdication of Queen Margrethe II.
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