During Pollard's 10 years of leadership, Sky News has consistently led the pack of 24-hour news channels and has won several Bafta and Royal Television Society awards for its reporting.
However, it was overtaken by BBC News 24 in viewing figures last year. Sky's rival is currently reaching around 6m viewers per week, up from 5m in 2005, while Sky is reaching 4m, down from 4.6m.
The fall came despite a major relaunch of the channel in October, in which Pollard introduced "appointment to view" programming and a new-look studio and brought in big name presenters such as Eamonn Holmes from GMTV for new breakfast show 'Sunrise' and James Rubin, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, to present 'World News Tonight'.
Pollard will not leave the channel until September, and his successor has already been announced as John Ryley, currently the executive editor of Sky News.
His record as an "outstanding leader" was praised by Sky's chief executive James Murdoch.
Murdoch said: "Few people could claim to have done more than Nick Pollard to transform television news in this country. I have the deepest respect for Nick and the contribution that he has made not only to Sky but to broadcast journalism as a whole."
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