Sky News has launched a subscription app dedicated to defence and security coverage, alongside polling suggesting nearly a third of Britons believe the United Kingdom is likely to face a military attack within the next decade, the broadcaster stated.
Sky News Defence Insider is priced at £14.99 a month, with a three-month free trial for new subscribers, and gives access to reporting and analysis from the broadcaster’s defence journalists including Defence and Security Editor Deborah Haynes and military analyst Michael Clarke.
The app is built around video, with subscribers able to put questions directly to journalists and experts through Q&A sessions and community discussions. It also carries frontline reporting, expert briefings, explainers, interviews with military leaders and decision-makers, and early access to live events.
In the interests of transparency, our editor in chief George Allison has joined the platform as a freelance security and defence journalist, contributing written and video defence and security journalism as part of the contributor team for Sky News Defence Insider.
The launch is accompanied by new polling conducted by Sky News with YouGov, which the broadcaster says reflects growing public anxiety about an increasingly insecure world. Nearly a third of Britons believe the country is likely to face a military attack within the next decade, according to that research, against a background of what Sky describes as growing debate about what the changing international landscape should mean for British security and defence priorities.
Deborah Haynes set out the case for the app in terms of how much has changed. “For decades, Britain enjoyed a level of relative peace and security that many of us took for granted,” she said. “Yet, with Russia’s war in Ukraine, conflict in the Middle East and uncertainty about the extent of US military support to Europe in a crisis, understanding defence, security and wider national resilience has never been more important.”
The app, in her account, provides “an inside track as the UK and its European allies attempt to rearm to confront a more dangerous world”.
Jonathan Levy, Executive Editor and Managing Director of Sky News, said defence is an area where the broadcaster has real authority, expertise and distinctive journalism. “As public interest in national security continues to grow, Defence Insider gives audiences direct access to the reporting, analysis and expert voices that help explain an increasingly complex world.”
According to Sky News, the app builds on demand demonstrated by The Wargame, its podcast series which generated 3.6 million cross-platform listens, and forms part of a broader strategy running to 2030 aimed at building deeper relationships with audiences around specialist content and premium video journalism.
Defence Insider sits alongside the free Sky News app rather than replacing any of its existing coverage.
