NBCUniversal has confirmed that its upcoming news channel 'NBC Sky World News' has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The new news channel aims to take on CNN in international markets by drawing together the strengths of NBC in the US and Sky News, headquartered in the UK.

Earlier this year it was touted for a summer launch, with 50 journalists already hired to date, but now the plans will be re-evaluated later in the year after the spread of COVID-19 led to the imposition of a lockdown in the UK.

According to Variety, NBC News chairman Andy Lack told staff: "We had quite a remarkable, arguably state of the art global news service in the planning phases that we all wanted to do.

"When things become more clear, when we get to the other side of this crisis, we'll review all these plans. I want to underscore just how committed we are to increasing our journalism outside the US."

NBC and Sky joined forces last year when Comcast completed a $39 billion (£32 billion) takeover of the satellite broadcaster.