How to Watch News24 from Anywhere: VPN Guide 2026
For nine years the Sky name on Australia’s biggest news channel was rented, never owned. News Corp Australia bought the operator outright in December 2016, yet the branding stayed on licence from Britain, and once Comcast took over Sky plc in 2018 the Murdoch family lost its stake there too. Sky Limited then declined to renew, partly over that ownership change and partly because the two newsrooms had drifted apart: UK regulation obliges Sky News to stay impartial, while the Sydney channel built its evenings around opinion.
On 27 July 2026 the whole operation relaunched as News24, new site and app included. The snag for readers is that live streams stay locked to Australia, so an attempt to watch News24 outside Australia on a home connection returns an error rather than a bulletin. The same operator sells a legitimate international feed called Australia Channel, and the News24 Australia YouTube channel plus the audio podcasts remain free. NordVPN matters only once you already pay for the stream and leave the country.
Is News24 available outside Australia?
Best VPN for News24
Tested weekly by our team. Green: works, amber: partial, red: blocked.
| VPN Service | Price | News24 | Tested | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
NordVPNBEST | From $2.99/mo | ✓ Works | August 23 | Try it |
Surfshark | From $1.78/mo | ✓ Works | August 24 | Open |
ExpressVPN | From $2.79/mo | ✓ Works | August 24 | Open |
CyberGhost | From $1.75/mo | ✓ Works | August 23 | Open |
IPVanish | From $2.19/mo | ✓ Works | August 19 | Open |
ProtonVPN | From $3.59/mo | ✓ Works | August 23 | Open |
Private Internet Access | From $1.79/mo | ✓ Works | August 22 | Open |
How to Unblock News24 with a VPN
Takes about 2 minutes. Works on your phone, tablet, TV, PC, or laptop.
- Pick a VPN with Australian serversGo with NordVPN. A round the clock news feed needs a steady exit node in Sydney or Melbourne, not a cheap proxy. Plans start at $2.99 a month, and annual billing cuts that further.Free VPNs rarely hold an Australian route long enough for a live bulletin.
- Connect before you open anythingSwitch to the Australian location first, then load News24. Doing it the other way round leaves a cached region flag in the player and the wall stays up despite the connection.
- Set up the subscription at news24.com.auThe direct route is the broadcaster’s own site and the News24 Australia app, billed in Australian dollars. Monthly costs A$4.99, the yearly plan A$49.99. Foxtel and BINGE stay separate routes with their own billing.The annual plan works out at roughly ten monthly payments, so two months come free.
- Start the News24 live feed in 1080pPlayback runs in the browser, on iOS and Android, and on Samsung Tizen, LG webOS or Android TV, plus Chromecast, Firestick and Apple TV. If the picture stutters, hop to another Australian node.
Which countries is News24 available in?
News24 is only available in Australia. To access it from anywhere else, use a premium VPN.
Available in 1 country No VPN needed
Blocked in 193 countries VPN required
Show all 181 more countries
News24 is blocked in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in Canada, in New Zealand and in Ireland, plus in 188 more countries. To access it, use a premium VPN like NordVPN.
How Much Does News24 Cost?
News24.com.au Monthly
- Up to 1080p
- 1 simultaneous stream
- Ad-free
- No offline downloads
News24.com.au Annual
- Up to 1080p
- 1 simultaneous stream
- Ad-free
- No offline downloads
Who’s behind the service?
What is News24
Australia’s round-the-clock news channel, on air since 1996 and known as Sky News Australia until July 2026. It is run by Australian News Channel, part of News Corp Australia. Live news, politics, business and weather sit alongside opinion programmes such as The Bolt Report, Credlin and Paul Murray Live. A subscription runs directly on news24.com.au, with Foxtel and Binge as further routes. Outside Australia it is watched through the sister service Australia Channel.

Company and history
- Australian News Channel put the country’s first round the clock television news service on air on 19 February 1996, broadcasting from studios at Frenchs Forest in northern Sydney under the Sky News Australia name.
- In December 2016 News Corp Australia bought out the three founding shareholders, British Sky Broadcasting, Seven Network and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, leaving the operator behind News24 with a single owner.
- Comcast completed its takeover of Sky plc in October 2018 after Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox lost the auction and sold its stake. From then on the Australian channel held the Sky name purely on licence.
- Sky News on WIN went dark on 31 July 2021 and a free to air regional channel replaced it the next day across the Southern Cross Austereo network. It runs today as News24 Regional on channel 56.
- A free ad supported channel arrived on Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels on 23 March 2023. After the rebrand it carries the name News24 Now and mixes highlights from all three news services.
- News Corp completed the sale of the Foxtel Group to DAZN in April 2025 for 3.4 billion Australian dollars. The pay television carrier that distributes News24 therefore no longer sits inside the same corporate group.
- From 16 December 2025 Foxtel folded its news line up into BINGE, lifting that service to thirteen news channels. Alongside News24 the move added NBC News NOW and the channel’s two sister feeds.
- At the official opening of the new Surry Hills headquarters, with eight studios and six control rooms, management announced on 20 February 2026 that the channel would become News24. The channel had turned thirty the day before.
- On Monday 27 July 2026 the broadcast channels, streaming products and digital assets all moved under the News24 name, backed by the new news24.com.au site, the News24 Australia app and a renamed free channel.
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Tips & tricks you should know
5 tips from our News24 testing team · Updated August 3, 2026
- Take the annual plan on news24.com.au: A$49.99 against A$4.99 a month is roughly two months free, and it unlocks all four live channels.
- Zero budget option: News24 Now runs free on Samsung TV Plus channel 1010 and LG Channels 105, and the opinion shows also land as podcasts.
- Already paying for Binge, Foxtel Go or news24.com.au? Keep an Australian server on NordVPN while you travel, otherwise the live feed stops at the border.
- Living outside Australia for good? The Australia Channel app carries News24 for A$6 a month or A$50 a year, but it stays blocked inside Australia and New Zealand.
- Foxtel channel 600 and Binge stream News24 in HD, while regional Freeview 56 is downscaled to standard definition, so prefer the pay TV feed.
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Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know before subscribing to News24.
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