Sky News Australia has sparked outrage in royal circles after King Charles maiden Christmas Speech was leaked online ten hours before its scheduled airing time in the United Kingdom.
The speech, which is traditionally aired across the Commonwealth, including countries in the South Pacific and Australasia, had an agreement in place with Buckingham Palace and BBC Studios stating that it could not be uploaded to the internet or streamed online before 15:10 GMT.
However, Sky News Australia published the entire eight-minute address to its YouTube channel at 5:15am UK time, breaching royal protocol and sparking anger in the Youtube comments section.
The video had been viewed by over 60,000 people within three hours of being uploaded.
Due to the challenges of timezones, Australian broadcasters have traditionally been allowed to transmit the speech on free-to-air TV ahead of UK broadcasters provided the content remains geo-blocked to within Australia.
TV Blackbox has approached Sky News Australia for comment.
This is not the first time that The King’s speech has been leaked, as in 1992 The Sun newspaper released Queen Elizabeth II’s address two days before it was set to air, leading to stricter measures being put in place to prevent such incidents from occurring again.
Source – RoyalCentral.co.uk
