Television in the United Kingdom 4 Corp, according to BARB's viewing figures for January 2018. On 18 January 2011, then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt announced his intentions to set up a network of local television stations across the UK. The initial plan was to create a network of local television stations, connected through a national backbone. This plan would create a television network similar to that of the network-affiliate model in the United States and Canada. In June 2011, however, it was announced that the national spine plan would be scrapped, and a 'bottom-up' approach would be followed instead,
Sky News In a 2010 article in the "New Statesman", prominent journalist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan argued that "in style and in substance, of course, it is nothing like the pro-war, pro-Republican, pro-Palin Fox News Channel... Sky News remains, as far as I can see, free of party political bias." Ofcom received complaints regarding the network's lack of neutrality ahead of the 2010 General Election, but these were not upheld. In early 1994 Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of "The Sun" newspaper, was appointed managing director of BSkyB, Sky News's parent company at the time. MacKenzie's proposed changes to Sky News led to