An Update on Noosphere — May 2026

A first-of-its-kind partnership: Sky News licenses Noosphere to power direct-to-audience reporting from its defense and security correspondents.

An update from Jane Ferguson, inaugural Neal Conan Prize winner and CEO and founder of Noosphere, on the company she built after the Prize.

Jane Ferguson founded Noosphere in 2024 after observing what she described as “the collapse of the broadcast and digital news ecosystems.” In an interview with Semafor, she said there were few platforms that allowed journalists to monetize their work while maintaining direct engagement with audiences, so she and a small group of investors raised about $1 million to create a mobile‑first news platform with an endless scroll and a subscription price of less than $20 per month. The app launched with more than a dozen journalists working as independent contractors, and revenue is shared with them based on subscribers. Noosphere is part of a growing movement of journalist‑owned and creator‑driven news outlets such as 404 Media, Hell Gate, Defector, and Racket; these cooperatives rely on subscriptions and advertising to stay afloat. Some observers note, however, that sustaining worker-owned ventures can be challenging, and that journalists may lack the business experience required to run media companies.

“We’ve just signed our first deal with Sky News,” Ferguson said in an update to the Neal Prize community. “They’re licensing a version of Noosphere and will launch a product this summer with their own foreign correspondents, national security reporters, and anchors filing directly to the public and running Q&As with them. It’s our first deal of this kind — and Sky becomes the first legacy media organization to let its reporters file directly to the public on this model. For us, it’s a huge validation of what we built. We look forward to more partnerships that help legacy media meet creator‑distribution models.” 

Associated Press reported on April 10, 2026, that Noosphere signed a multiyear licensing agreement with Sky News to make the platform’s technology available for a separate channel and said Sky planned to experiment with the app for its defense and security experts. The article quoted Ferguson describing industry endorsement as “really special” and saying it had “been a long time coming.” The AP noted that Noosphere’s two‑year‑old company hosts “some two dozen” journalists, including former NBC “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd and former CNN journalist Chris Cillizza, who work as independent contractors.

Sky and Noosphere did not disclose financial terms. Ferguson announced on LinkedIn that the Sky News Defence product would launch later in 2026 and called it “the first time a legacy newsroom is embracing a true creator distribution model.” Noosphere also added a new executive: Ferguson said they had onboarded a new head of product and engineering, Tommy Isaksson. Isaksson is a tech industry veteran, most recently holding VP and SVP of Engineering roles at Flexera and Gracenote, respectively.

The rise of Noosphere and its partnership with Sky News comes amid a broader shift toward “creator‑distribution” models. Platforms like Substack and Beacon let writers charge readers directly, while worker‑owned outlets such as Hell Gate and Defector emerged after layoffs and newsroom instability. These ventures aim to give journalists ownership and a direct relationship with audiences, but their sustainability depends on attracting enough subscribers to cover costs. Noosphere’s deal with a legacy broadcaster suggests that traditional media companies are exploring ways to adapt to this new model.

— The Neal Conan Prize