Sky News Australia automation designer Brodie Wright is all about simplifying and speeding up workflows. So, when he saw an election touchscreen demo using Viz Flowics, his interest was piqued by its potential to simplify the complex processes of integrating fast-changing elections data into graphics without any manual intervention. In short, Brodie was looking for a system that would allow designers to work on creating graphics, and not have to fuss with infrastructure or integrations issues. And, with minimal to no coding requirements.
Initial Trials
In October 2023, Sky News Australia conducted a proof of concept (POC) for the Australian Indigenous Voice referendum. The flexibility of the Viz Flowics interface allowed the team to replicate their existing Vizrt graphics, and the data from the referendum was handled without a hitch. This success highlighted the intuitive web editor and design capabilities of Viz Flowics, enabling in-house management of touchscreen creation, which previously required external contractors.
Sky News Australia then tested the Viz Flowics touchscreen during the Dunkley by-election (see how Sky News used Viz Flowics) in March 2024. The chief election analyst praised it as “one of the smoothest elections” he had ever had from a data handling standpoint.
This positive feedback underscored the superior data handling capabilities and ease of use of Viz Flowics, making it a viable tool for future elections.
From proof of concept to real-time election coverage
“We were encouraged by the performance of Viz Flowics in the Dunkley by-election. So, we took it to the next level, with the Tasmania State Election a few weeks after, with 5 electorates. And buoyed by the successful deployment, we took it one step further this October for the Queensland State Election. This time it was data from 93 electorates, and hundreds of booths. It was a very long list of data points that we needed available on air.
“The entire graphics package was created using Viz Flowics – touchscreen, fullframe graphics, lower thirds and tickers. Viz Flowics was solid. Based on our real-world experiences – I’m very impressed. Internally, the HTML5 solution has been a game changer for our touchscreens,” says Brodie.
The robustness and efficiency of Viz Flowics has now cemented the role of HTML5 graphics and touchscreens in Sky News Australia’s election coverage.
Creating an entire elections package in four days
“We did add our own ‘herbs and spices’ before the data went on air. But the main benefit is how Flowics handles the data. There’s absolutely no coding needed. With more complex systems, you have to type in a path, but with Viz Flowics, you can just select the data source, and it exposes all the data points. And you select the one you want.”
What the team liked most about Viz Flowics was its design simplicity, scalability and speed. Especially in a year like this with back-to-back elections to cover, because just days after the Queensland vote came the US Presidential Election.
It’s a small team here at Sky News Australia, so every minute saved is a minute that can be added to more advanced and critical tasks. Building the entire graphics packages internally also meant greater flexibility and improved workflow with the team creating graphics and editing on the fly as required by the newsroom with a much shorter turnaround time.
“We were in a time crunch for the US Election, but by then we already had so much knowledge on working with Viz Flowics so we could speed up the process. The ability to create end-to-end graphics in-house meant our team could put together the entire graphics package in four days. Traditionally this would have taken us a few weeks. And we could quickly edit the graphics, or spin up a new version when needed. This is a massive gamechanger for us.
“This time we used the Google Sheets integration to get data in. And we added a button to the sheet so that it was a producer controlling the updates in line with our news coverage, rather than the graphics operator.”
Viz Flowics Google Sheet Data Provider makes it possible to connect external Google Sheets Data to build data-driven graphics such as elections updates, a dynamic rundown of headlines, sports results and market movements. All the producer or operator needs to do is to refresh the data in the Google Sheet, and the on-air graphics are automatically updated in real-time.
“We’ve come a long way in one year and working with Viz Flowics is really a no-brainer for creating our infographics, like all the election graphics for analysis. It really works well with handling extensive amounts of data,” adds Brodie.
“We could also easily share the URL link with our executives, so they could monitor from anywhere and keep track of what’s happening on the touchscreen.”
2025 Federal Election campaign
For the 2025 Federal Election this was a chance for Sky News Australia to use HTML graphics across all content including the video walls, touchscreen with new dynamic maps, full frames and ticker.
For the first time the Sky News Decision Desk, led by Chief Election Analyst Tom Connell, powered seat calls for the entire News Corp Australia network, including SkyNews.com.au, The Australian, news.com.au and all masthead websites, also featured on Apple News.
More than 4.7 million unique Australians were kept up to date with these seat calls through these placements on the night, including at 7:40pm AEST when Tom was the first to call the Coalition would not be able to win a majority.
The data enabled Sky News to take a new marketing approach, for the first time deploying dynamic out-of-home digital billboards across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The creative included a live tally of the two-party preferred vote and seat count, delivering results in real time to Australians in high traffic roadside, bus shelter and street furniture locations on election night, driving them to stream our live coverage. This featured as part of the network’s extensive national marketing campaign across print, digital and radio.
Viz Flowics is also part of Sky News Australia’s plan to ensure platform redundancy in their disaster recovery program.
