Television news channels

Television news is the most heavily regulated form of journalism in most countries: broadcasting on licensed spectrum has almost everywhere carried impartiality, accuracy or content obligations that the press has never been subject to. Inside those rules a television newsroom works against two constraints print does not have — what can be shown, and who can be booked — so a story with pictures and an available guest will outrank one with neither, whatever its weight. The channel's website is usually a shop window for the bulletin rather than a separate publication, which means its ordering tends to track the running order. The channels listed here are the commercially funded ones; publicly funded broadcasters are grouped separately.

Start with which stories carry video and which are text-only: the ones with pictures earned airtime, and the rest are there to fill the page. Then read a commercial channel beside the public broadcaster from the same country. Both are working under the same broadcast rules, so what differs between them is commercial judgement rather than licence conditions — which story is worth a live slot, which guest is worth booking, and how much of the bulletin goes to the day's politics rather than to weather, sport and crime.

Of the 66 tracked here, Crosswire places 4 on the left, 55 near the centre and 7 on the right. This is an approximate orientation, not a definitive judgement — and not a rating of quality or accuracy. How leanings are classified. Directory last reviewed 2026-08-17.