Sky considers ending controversial UAE news joint venture | Sky
Sky is considering ending its joint venture with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after it was accused of broadcasting propaganda and denying genocide.
Sky is in talks with its partner in the UAE over the possible termination of its license to use its brand on the Sky News Arabia channel next year.
In 2010, Sky News struck a deal with IMI, the investment vehicle controlled by UAE vice-president and Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, to launch a 24-hour Arabic news and current affairs service, which licensed the Sky brand.
Sky executives became increasingly concerned about the position Sky News Arabia was taking on news in the region.
Reporting of atrocities committed in Sudan by the UAE-backed paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been accused of whitewashing genocide.
In November, the Sudanese government banned Sky News Arabia from operating on its territory after the satellite channel sent a team to El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, claiming that the security and humanitarian situation had stabilized.
The reporter sent by Sky News Arabia is married to a senior official from RSF’s parallel government.
The channel then featured satellite imagery and news reports and online articles suggesting there was no evidence to support the accounts of survivors of the persecution.
In February, a UN-commissioned fact-finding mission concluded that the siege, capture and 18-month occupation of the city by the RSF and allied militias was deliberately aimed at the destruction of ethnic minority communities bearing “marks of genocide.”
The UAE denied any responsibility for the atrocities committed by the RSF.
Abu Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia began broadcasting in the Middle East and North Africa in 2012 to compete with Arabic-language TV news channels such as Al Jazeera and BBC News Arabic.
The service made a commitment to independence and reporting without fear or failure at launch. “The issue of balance will differentiate us,” said Nart Bouran, who was then president of Sky News Arabia.
The original joint venture deal was struck by News Corporation, which then controlled Sky.
US-based Comcast, which acquired Sky in 2018, chose not to renew News Corporation’s licensing agreement to use the Sky News brand in Australia. Sky News Australia We will rebrand as News24 later this year.
In 2020, a plan to launch a new global rolling news channel to challenge CNN by bringing together Sky News and Comcast’s US-based NBC – called NBC Sky World News – was scrapped.
Sky News declined to comment.
An IMI spokesman said: “Any suggestion that decisions have been made regarding the future of this partnership is false. Discussions are actively ongoing and both parties remain fully and positively engaged in this process. These discussions are commercial in nature, strictly confidential and have no connection with editorial matters or newsroom operations.”
