Today we have announced that Sky News mobile applications have been downloaded by our customers over ten million times. That’s quite a number and it incorporates the iPhone, iPad, Windows, Blackberry and Android devices. What it also signifies is the massive demand from our customers to consume the news in the way they want it.

Long gone are the days when breaking news was about finding your nearest television and rushing to tune-in to learn about the latest developments. Now it is about being able to stay across news and analysis minute-by-minute wherever you are, in the format you want. It’s also about continuing to strive to provide the best service for your customers, ensuring you innovate to anticipate their changing viewing habits, whilst keeping core editorial values at the heart of what you do.

Innovate or die might seem like a dramatic mantra, but it is one I strongly believe in.

At Sky News we are constantly evolving. As we broaden our reach across new platforms to deliver news to our customers, so do our editorial team in the way they get that news to our customers. Not only are we delivering news to our customers on their iphones, we are also using them to gather news. When reporter Joe Tidy’s camera failed to work when reporting on the UK floods back in February, he turned to an app made by Dejero on his iPhone not only to film, but also to edit, the story; when Mark Stone was arrested and bundled into a police van after reporting the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, he filmed from his iPhone inside the van.

The good news is that our customers are responding.  March was a tremendously busy month for Sky News, with three major stories at once – the mystery of missing flight MH370, the Oscar Pistorius trial and the Ukraine crisis. On TV and digital products Sky News saw fantastic levels of usage – digital figures were more than 20% higher than the previous record and TV saw its highest figures since the riots in August 2011.  Proof that there remains enormous demand for all of our services.

Innovation in the newsroom and innovation for our customers come hand in hand. It is paramount to what we do and will remain so for a long time to come.