Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Sky launches new campaign to help tackle loneliness amongst older people

16/06/2021

Employees from Sky's customer service group receive dedicated time each week to speak to older people

New befriending line launches to support Sky's older customers

Sky signs up to support Loneliness Awareness Week and joins the Tackling Loneliness Network

This Loneliness Awareness Week Sky has announced a new initiative, Time to Care, in partnership with Age UK and other older peoples' charities, to help tackle loneliness across the country. The newly launched Time to Care is part of Sky's wide-ranging volunteering programme, Sky Cares, which allows employees to give back to the communities where they live and work.

Over the past 18 months, Sky have been supporting their flagship partner, Age UK, with loneliness a key area of focus for the partnership. This past year has shown just how valuable and important social interaction is to everybody, especially to some older people. Last winter Age UK reported that 6.1 million people aged 60 and over said that they were feeling lonely while 2.2 million of over 60s who had their well-being impacted by coronavirus said that they haven't had anyone to talk to about their worries during the pandemic.

Time to Care will harness the passion and power of Sky's 15,000 customer service group colleagues and aims to achieve one million interactions with older people each year. The customer service group, which is made up of contact centre staff, retail staff, engineers and their respective support teams, will be given dedicated time each week to volunteer and get in touch with older customers.

Chris Stylianou, Chief Operating Officer, UK and Ireland, Sky said: For too many older people, the isolation we've experienced over this difficult year is permanent. Loneliness is a devastating growing social issue but with the expertise of Age UK we believe Sky can help make real change and connections where they are needed to have a lasting impact.

We recognise the role we play in keeping people connected and look forward to supporting the UK Government's work to tackle loneliness and share our insight with other members of the Tackling Loneliness Network.

Steph Harland, Chief Executive, Age UK said: The pandemic has taken its toll on our older population's health and morale and, for many, has intensified existing feelings of loneliness and anxiety. Age UKs research has demonstrated just how important connection is to them. It found, for example, that when it comes to getting through the pandemic, 5.8 million older people said they wouldn't have managed it without their friendsiii and almost 2 million older people said they wouldnt have coped without the kindness of strangersiv.

In these difficult and uncertain times older people need friendly connections like never before. This is where Sky comes in: through Time to Care, Sky employees will be doing something tangible to help us to support the millions of older people who may otherwise have no one to turn to. We're so grateful to Sky for keeping older people in their minds.

Since the start of the pandemic, Sky has supported local Age UK partners across England, Age Cymru partners and Age Scotland groups. Leveraging Age UK's expertise, Sky engineers have spent more than 1,000 hours delivering goods to those most in need through the pandemic. This included delivering meals and gifts on behalf of 15 different local Age UKs. Additionally, Sky volunteers have dedicated more than 4,000 hours since April 2020 to support Age UK, Age Scotland, Age Cymru, the Silver Line Helpline and Sky's own in-house befriending line. This in-house befriending line supports Skys older customers with weekly friendship calls and is staffed by Sky's customer service group who are able to reach out to customers who might need someone to talk to.

Sky has also signed-up to the government's Tackling Loneliness Network, convened by DCMS, to share knowledge and best practice on how businesses can help tackle loneliness and to raise awareness of the stigma surrounding the issue along with the more than 80 other members of the network.

Media contacts: Kabir Parhar, Corporate Communications and Campaigns Exec, Kabir.parhar@sky.uk

About Sky

Sky is Europe's leading media and entertainment company and is proud to be part of the Comcast group. Across six countries, we connect our 23.4 million customers to the best entertainment, sports, news and arts including our own award-winning original content.

Our technology, including the market leading Sky Q, connects people to everything they love - with entertainment from Sky TV, Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer, and apps like Spotify, YouTube, BBC Sounds, Highbrow, Peloton, Fiit, and more, in one place, easy. Our streaming service NOW brings viewers all the enjoyment of Sky with the flexibility of a contract-free service. Through our new B2B broadband provider, Sky Connect, we offer superfast broadband with business-grade 4G back-up to small businesses in the UK.

Building on the success of Sky Originals like Chernobyl, Gangs of London and Brassic, we are doubling our investment in original content by 2024 through Sky Studios. Sky News provides impartial and trustworthy journalism for free, Sky Arts is the UK's only dedicated free-to-air arts channel making the arts accessible for everyone and Sky Sports, our leading sports broadcasting service, brings customers some of the biggest and best global sporting events from the Premier League to Formula 1 and everything in-between. Our new TV and movie studio, Sky Studios Elstree, which will open in 2022, is expected to create over 2,000 new jobs and generate an additional £3 billion of production investment in the UK over the first five years.

We believe that we can be a force for good in the communities in which we operate. We're committ
LINK: https://www.skygroup.sky/en-gb/article/sky-launches-new-campaign-to-he...
See more stories from sky

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

02/06/2026

Cobalt Digital to Showcase End-to-End IPMX Ecosystem at InfoComm 2026, Making ST 2110 Easy for Pro AV

blueCORE standalone processors headline solutions designed to simplify the trans...

02/06/2026

Monetizing the Archive: How Cantemo's JIT Playback Eliminates the Proxy Bottleneck

If you've kept up with this article series, you know by now where to start w...

02/06/2026

Calrec Scales ImPulseV for Greater Choice in Virtualised Workflows

With new DSP configurations and flexible licensing options, Calrec is removing the barriers to virtualised audio, giving broadcasters the freedom to scale produ...

02/06/2026

Marketing Architects Expands Relationship With Nielsen To Include Integration of Media Data Engine on a National Level

The TV agency was one of the earliest adopters of Nielsen's local television...

02/06/2026

Riedel Networks Taps Gudrun Scharler as CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Grass Valley Enables Sky News Australia s Cloud-First New...

Grass Valley today announced that Australian News Channel (ANC), operator of Sky News Australia, has deployed Grass Valley AMPP to transform its newsroom produc...

02/06/2026

STUDIO TECHNOLOGIES INTRODUCES NEW MODEL 385 MIC INTERCOM...

Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, announces its new Model 385 Mic/Intercom Beltpack. The Mode...

02/06/2026

Gudrun Scharler Appointed CEO of Riedel Networks

The Riedel Group today announced the appointment of Gudrun Scharler as CEO of Riedel Networks. She succeeds Michael Martens, who has led Riedel Networks since 2...

02/06/2026

Magewell Levels-Up All-in-One Content Production with Lau...

More signals, higher quality, and outstanding ingest and streaming flexibility deliver professional results in a small, all-in-one footprint...

02/06/2026

Modena Showcases farmerswife at Mediatech 2026

farmerswife will be featured on the Modena Media & Entertainment stand at this year's Mediatech Africa 2026, giving visitors an opportunity to explore the l...

02/06/2026

PTZOptics showcases intelligent video ecosystem at InfoCo...

PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17 19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...

02/06/2026

Roku Launches the Roku Soccer Zone

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

FCC Sets Deadlines for Comments in ABC License Renewals

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Studio Technologies Introduces Model 385 Beltpack

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Gerald Jerry Pierce, Architect of Modern Digital Cinema, Dies at 73

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/06/2026

Why TAG matters in digital advertising

Trust has become a commercial issue With global advertising spend forecast to exceed US$1 trillion this year*, the commercial consequences of weak governance co...

02/06/2026

RT is Supporting 12 Arts and Cultural Events all over Ireland this June

June sees Ireland's cultural calendar in full bloom, as RT Supporting the Arts showcases a vibrant and wide-ranging programme spanning music, theatre, visu...

02/06/2026

New seasons of The Traitors UK and US now available to stream on RT Player

After The Traitors Ireland launched in 2025, Irish audiences proved to have a taste for the global hit reality show. This Bank Holiday Monday fans can indulge e...

01/06/2026

CBS Sports UEFA Champions League Today Studio Show Heads to Budapest for Final as Transcontinental Popularity Grows

In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...

01/06/2026

AudioShake Launches End-to-End Copyright Compliance System for Mixed-Media Audio

Designed to solve a common problem in broadcasting, the automated workflow detects, identifies, removes, and documents copyrighted music AudioShake has introdu...

01/06/2026

SVG Sit-Down: Stats Perform's Charles Kaplan on 30 Years of Opta, a Busy Summer of Soccer, What's Next

The sports-analytics company combines its data with proprietary AI to help leagu...

01/06/2026

Production Music Awards 2026

Category line-up & sponsors announced Photo: Paul Clarke The Production Music Awards (PMA) have announced that submissions are now officially open ahead of...

01/06/2026

Evolve Nest Acoustics from Excite Audio

New hybrid sample/synthesis instrument revealed Excite Audio have just released the latest instalment in their Evolve series, which has been developed in co...

01/06/2026

IK Multimedia release Royal 45 Legends Signature Collection

Latest TONEX expansion captures three rare vintage amps The newest addition to IK Multimedia's ever-growing TONEX line-up introduces a set of three incr...

01/06/2026

Scaler Music Carbon Electra 2

Musically intelligent soft synth gets upgraded Scaler Music will be probably be best known to many for their music theory tools, but their product range al...

01/06/2026

SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026

SBS confirms its broadcast sponsors for FIFA World Cup 2026 1 June, 2026 Media releases SBS has secured Hyundai, Hisense, Macca's, Rexona, bet365, Com...

01/06/2026

Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to Orbit

Rohde & Schwarz Satellite Industry Days 2026 guided by the motto From Earth to ...

01/06/2026

ASG Advances Joe Marchitto to Western Regional CTO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

Scripps Stations Go Dark on DirecTV

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

MARSHALL ELECTRONICS POWERS SEAMLESS AV EXPERIENCES WITH...

Marshall Electronics is showcasing a comprehensive lineup of next-generation POV cameras, purpose-built to power today's connected AV environments, at InfoC...

01/06/2026

Adobe Announces Concept to Vector

Adobe Announces Concept to Vector Deepa Subramaniam June 1, 2026 0 Comments One of the biggest frustrations we hear from designers is how difficult it...

01/06/2026

Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio

Vampire Feature Night Patrol Graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio Brie Clayton June 1, 2026 0 Comments Colorist shapes dark, gritty tone for horror thri...

01/06/2026

U.S. Broadcasters Ready for Most Complex FIFA World Cup Ever

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

Broadcasters Prepare for Nation's 250th Birthday Bash

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

Broadcasters Reveal What Makes C-Band Alternatives Right for Them

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

IAMT to Offer New Educational Sessions at InfoComm 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

NewsNation Launches New Podcasting Studio and Podcasts

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/06/2026

SES Launches Multi-Orbit Satellite Connectivity on Mexico's Viva

Luxembourg, June 1, 2026 - SES, a leading space solutions company, and Viva, Mexico's ultra low-cost airline, launched fast and reliable multi-orbit satelli...

01/06/2026

NVIDIA Jetson Brings Agentic AI to the Physical World

Agentic AI is getting physical. At COMPUTEX on Tuesday, NVIDIA announced NVIDIA JetPack 7.2 and NVIDIA NemoClaw support on NVIDIA Jetson. JetPack 7.2 brings a...

01/06/2026

Why Financial Institutions Are Converging on Transaction Foundation Models to Build Their Own Intelligence

Financial institutions have spent years building AI: fraud models, credit models...

01/06/2026

Simplifiez vos workflows avec FLAPI. Paris. 2 juin 2026

Mardi 2 juin 14h00 FilmLight (ARRI), 10 rue Ren Boulanger, 75010 Paris Rejoignez-nous pour d couvrir comment FLAPI (l'API FilmLight) peut transformer e...

01/06/2026

Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026

January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026 Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...

31/05/2026

Olivia Prez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona

Olivia P rez-Collellmir to Premiere Original Work at Gaud Centennial in Barcelona The Berklee graduate and faculty member will debut her choral symphony with...

31/05/2026

Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Photos From Inside Our Photo Suite

Back to All News Netflix Wins 15 Awards at the Canadian Screen Awards - See Pho...

31/05/2026

Taiwan's Industry Titans Turbocharge World's AI Infrastructure Buildout With NVIDIA

Taiwan is home to more than 500 NVIDIA ecosystem partners. More than 1 million N...