LONDON (Reuters) - News UK, the British media arm of the Murdoch family, will move its TalkTV channel online, ditching its presence on linear television just two years after a high-profile launch centred around its star presenter Piers Morgan.
News UK, publisher of the Sun and the Times and owned by News Corp, told staff in a memo seen by Reuters that the shift to online news consumption meant running a traditional television channel no longer made economic sense.
TalkTV debuted in April 2022, aiming to create a "new voice" in news and opinion, and competing against GB News, which had launched the previous year to challenge what it said was the London-centred consensus of the British media, led by the BBC.
"While linear TV has been a good marketing and awareness window for Talk, we now need to focus our investment on where the eyeballs are and where the revenues are in growth," News UK's Scott Taunton, EVP, President of Broadcasting, told staff.
The closure of the linear TV operation shows the financial challenge faced by traditional broadcast media as viewer numbers slide, making for a tough advertising market.
News UK will take the channel off air in early summer to focus on streaming, it said. The group declined to comment on how many jobs could be lost as part of a restructuring process which will now follow.