MEDIA NEWS:

Sky News has issued a rare apology for a mistake in its coverage of last Tuesday night’s federal budget.

Sky’s CEO, Paul Whitaker, said a “technical mix-up” was responsible for the embarrassing bungle that saw the broadcast of a pre-recorded four-hour budget analysis program hosted by “after dark” commentator and Liberal Party co-director, Peta Credlin, immediately after Treasurer Jim Chalmers finished his budget speech. (main picture)

“Unfortunately the wrong pre-recorded program was put to air,” Mr Whitaker explained.

“Instead of the program Peta recorded in August last year to analyse last Tuesday’s 2026-2027 federal budget, another four-hour budget analysis recorded in January this year was broadcast.

“That program was actually analysing next year’s horror Labor federal budget that makes everyone worse off. So I apologise to our viewer, but I hope they will still tune in next May to re-watch it. Unless, we fuck up again, that is, and Peta’s analysis refers to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.”

The budget analysis program consisted almost entirely of Ms Credlin leaning into the camera and repeatedly screaming: “Vote Liberal! Vote Liberal! Vote Liberal!”

It is understood the error in broadcasting the wrong program was noticed only when she paused to allude to the opposition’s budget reply speech “by Opposition Leader Andrew Hastie” due two days later.

Mr Whitaker took the opportunity to defend the use of the on-screen description “live” for what had been revealed as pre-recorded content.

“We use ‘live’ quite often because that’s the nature of all our ‘after dark’ programming,” he said. “But the word ‘live’ does not mean the content is actually going to air as it is made – ‘live’ is actually a Sky acronym for ‘Liberal-inclined viewer education’, so it’s not misleading at all.”

Mr Whitaker would not disclose exactly how the mistake was made.

“As you know, when it comes to information about the Murdoch media, our parent company News Crap Australia has a Your Right to No campaign, so you can just fuck off,” he explained.

But he did stress that no blame was attached to the Liberal Party.

“Our broadcast partner and the co-producer of all of our ‘after dark’ program carries absolutely no responsibility for this bungle,” he said before adding, “Vote Liberal!”

 * Which nobody calls News24 despite its expensive rebranding.

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