Sky News Ireland abolished end November

Sponge Bob

They are leaving one crew in Dublin in case the Sky falls in and they need live footage but apart from that they are getting rid of the lot

Guess who had the story first

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/1031/sky.html

mike2084

Sky News Ireland is to be axed:

Sky News Ireland operation cut back

31 October 2006 14:13
It has been announced that the Sky News bureau in Ireland is to be severely curtailed.

The 25 staff were told this morning that Sky plans to drop its two nightly Irish news broadcasts from 30 November and to reduce staff to four in the Dublin office and from five to one in the Belfast office.

Sky News Ireland was set up in May 2004.


http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1031/sky.html

Dr. Nick

Surprised it took them this long....

county

not a big shock tbh,it was never going the compete with RTE news, or dare i say TV3 news:rolleyes:

Thrill

It wasnt all that great anyway, imo.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Well, what a sad loss THAT'S going to be...

edit: thought I could hear some laighing coming from the TV3 studio direction....

DMC

We all saw it coming, especially when Ms. Seoige left, it was only a matter of time.... but I have to say, there are some fine and good journalists now without work.

And for them, its a shame.

Uncle Grueber

DMC wrote:

We all saw it coming, especially when Ms. Seoige left, it was only a matter of time.... but I have to say, there are some fine and good journalists now without work.

And for them, its a shame.

... and studio crew, graphics and sound ops, and sat engineers amongst others.

channelsurfer

ok bit of a rant time but it just shows that all they are really intersted in is to get the subscribers in whatever cheap way possible and having an irish base is not a cheap way to go. dont pay any VAT in ireland or obey any irish broadcasting law. use the fact that you are uk based etc to avoid taxes and then expect people to take your service by promoting how good it is and as if its different than that evil sky service in the uk.

anyone who whinges about chorus/ntl upc remeber they have to abide by rish regulations and pay irish vat etc.

JohnC.

Cut back to 1 in Belfast too. That must get pretty lonely

spuddy

I'm going to be the first to say I'll miss it.
Living abroad, it is/was the only channel I can receive with Irish news.
It is a loss.

Gargantuan

Kahless wrote:

Cut back to 1 in Belfast too. That must get pretty lonely

Bit of a tame Xmas party

mike65

I never watched it, not once.

Mike.

Richard

Kahless wrote:

Cut back to 1 in Belfast too. That must get pretty lonely

Surprised they mentioned the Belfast 1. Sky News Ireland isn't broadcast there.

The article doesn't say explicitly that SNI will be axed, though I don't see how it could continue...

JohnC.

Richard wrote:

The article doesn't say explicitly that SNI will be axed, though I don't see how it could continue...

It does say "broadcasts ceasing on November 30."

flogen

Sponge Bob wrote:

Guess who had the story first

I did, at 4 minutes past 1PM; a whole 25 minutes before RTÉ.ie...
In your face RTÉ.... you got scooped!

And the full press release does say that SNI will be axed, although it's slightly friendlier than that, saying that it is being refocused and put back into the main SN broadcast, or something.

I do wonder what the 1 guy/gal in Belfast will be doing, even a reporter needs a cameraman...

Rippy

Is a pity. Having Sky News Ireland on interactive is very useful when you want the news but have missed RTE. I think TV3 news is a joke. I guess news is just not sexy for advertisers these days. A definate backward step. What next Sky news subscription only?
I have a very nice winter jacket with a "Sky News Ireland" logo that Sky gave out to their agents a couple of years ago. If I wear it now everyone will think I'm an out of work journo!:D

parasite

flogen wrote:

I did, at 4 minutes past 1PM; a whole 25 minutes before RTÉ.ie...

meh, it was on rte radio headlines at 1pm, old media ftw

g6lxl

Spare a thought for those in the UK for whom Sky News Ireland was the only source of TV news covering Ireland. It may have been pretty grotty but better than nothing! Of course, if RTE was available to viewers in UK...... if only
Mick

djpaul

Sky should have offered Grainne(The Legs) Seoige more money to stay at SNI. It went downhill after she left:(

flogen

parasite wrote:

meh, it was on rte radio headlines at 1pm, old media ftw

No you shut-up
New media roxxorz!
Seriously though, I just heard about it from a friend of a friend, and when I contacted their PR agency they told me they were just writing up the press release and they flung it my way.

watty

It was doomed to be a failure. A short opt out on a 24x7 rolling news channels was never going to work. Only a fully 24x7 Irish rolling news is going to be be watched.

JohnC.

flogen wrote:

I do wonder what the 1 guy/gal in Belfast will be doing, even a reporter needs a cameraman...

Not necessarily. Don't know if it happens much here or the UK, but sometimes a reporter is even just given a camera, a mic and a tripod to do a report on location by themselves.

Our man in Havana

Fans of Futurama/Simpsons etc must be rejoicing that SNI is dead.

Cabaal

Bond-007 wrote:

Fans of Futurama/Simpsons etc must be rejoicing that SNI is dead.

Got that right, sky news and sky news ireland were a heap of ****e imho

Never liked either setup,

flogen

watty wrote:

It was doomed to be a failure. A short opt out on a 24x7 rolling news channels was never going to work. Only a fully 24x7 Irish rolling news is going to be be watched.

couldn't agree more; Sky News in the UK has succeeded by offering rolling news to viewers; deviating from that format made no sense and the fact is SNI offered nothing new at all when compared to RTE or TV3 etc.
It has been obvious for some time that they were either going to cut and run or pump serious money in to create a full service, but as with many things in modern media the cheapest option was chosen.
It's hard to say, but perhaps more reasonable viewing figures could have eventually led to a 24hr Irish service but I doubt that... they were clocking in 8,000 a day at their 6:30 bulletin, which is a shockingly bad figure. I don't have the figures to hand but I'd wager that City Channel is clocking in higher (or at least similar) figures on a regular basis.

PacMan

Sad to hear about Sky News Ireland. Have to admit that I often found it annoying that Malcom in the Middle was replaced by Sky News ireland on Sky One!! However i have an Interesting point to make.... If you ever visit the satellite frequency pages of Lyngsat, and type in Ireland in the Free TV area, the ONLY free TV Channel on satellite from ireland is..... Sky News ireland................

Sparky

Bond-007 wrote:

Fans of Futurama/Simpsons etc must be rejoicing that SNI is dead.

Very true.


Mind you, in the two odd years SNI was on, I never watched it.

I had to laugh at the paper with the story: "after Sky pumped hundreads into sky news Ireland"

byte

Two threads on same subject merged and moved to Broadcasting board as Sky News is on more than one platform.

flogen

Sparky-s wrote:

I had to laugh at the paper with the story: "after Sky pumped hundreads into sky news Ireland"

What paper said that? Besides the spelling mistake they also fúcked the figure up; it was millions :S

Genghis

I think the departure of SNI is a loss. It may not have been RTE but I do think it was a better product than TV3. Better world stories (inevitable), better sports (TV3 Sports amounts to a promo for Sports Tonight - they never give any fuppin results - disgraceful).

Aside from all that, I welcomed the arrival of Irish content for Irish viewers - I think that was positive, and now it is gone, it is negative. Even more neagtive is that Sky don't seem to have any plan to re-invest their SNI commitments to Irish services.

In yesterdays Irish Times, Sky said they would integrate Irish stories into their main channel. Does anyone really think this will happen? Can you see the Sports Guy cutting from Football to GAA results? Would they really seek out Enda Kenny the next time Bertie slips up? Can you hear them announce how many deaths there were over the weekend on Irish roads, or how many patients sat on trollies? Will you be looking forward to seeing how the ISEQ fares on daily basis.

The reality is that once SNI divest from Ireland, there will be no Irish content on Sky News.

Scottish paddy

Why should there be any Irish news on Sky?.............IT'S A BRITISH CHANNEL!!

byte

British yes, but they also serve the Irish. There are 427,000 Irish households with Sky (according to their press office), so it would only seem fair that they make some small efforts, such as an hour of news!

Genghis

Scottish paddy wrote:

Why should there be any Irish news on Sky?.............IT'S A BRITISH CHANNEL!!

1. They have millions of Irish viewers in Ireland, North and South
2. They sell advertising space directed at Irish viewers
3. They make considerable Irish revenues in direct subscriptions, payments from cablecos and from advertising.

But most of all

4. They say they will feature Irish content.

I personally doubt they will actually feature any Irish channel, but unlike you - I think they should.

watty

Indeed it is an anomaly that we can easily subscribe to a Foreign British Service that is nearly Europhobic, yet can't subscribe to any OTHER European service as easily.

So much for the European Ideal. So much corporate world has a pre 1922 view of Ireland.

"I sorry we can't deal with you direct" (in Euros)
"You will have to deal with our Agent for UKandIreland in Manchester" (in Sterling)

Bah!

Richard

Genghis wrote:

1. They have millions of Irish viewers in Ireland, North and South

Although it is only on 501 in the Republic.

I did like SNI. I lived in the Republic for a few years and I'm still very much interested in what goes on there. As well as that it had a different perspective on some world issues which was good to hear.

watty

Well you still can get the more frequent and more in depth RTE Radio 1 News. 7am, 1pm and 5pm are all good.

LW 252 or Satellite or WRN.

Much as I generally don't have much praise for RTE, theose 3 programs do waht is says on the tin. If only they started at 6am and didn't be 1/2hour late all during August.

legalimmigrant

It wasn't on last night at 1830. That was quick.

DMC

It was gone from Sky One on Thursday night, was it on Sky News last night?

Motley Crue

Kahless wrote:

Not necessarily. Don't know if it happens much here or the UK, but sometimes a reporter is even just given a camera, a mic and a tripod to do a report on location by themselves.

As a student of Audio Visual Tech at 3rd Level I can confirm that the buisness seems to be getting more tight fisted and money saving every year. Theres very little room for expensive budgets and money spent on everyone and everything.

The day of a reporter taking a van to a shoot seems to be dying too, as most are told they need to drive their (themselves) with one other person (if theyre lucky) and be back by 2pm, no time for Lunch then

Bond-007 wrote:

Fans of Futurama/Simpsons etc must be rejoicing that SNI is dead.

Yes I am fully rejoicing that Futurama (a previously cancelled show which has not shown any new episodes as of yet) and The Simpsons (a show that has been on since yr dot - 1989 - is still showing the same episodes time and time again, that ill watch out of either stupidity or bordom) are back on air for longer

Although, I must say, I do support SNI (or I did) and think this comes as a shock decision and am displeased because it offered a beacon of hope as an alternative job source for students in the Industry that now no longer exsists and with Newstalk going National and Phantom up and running I have to try a hand at radio, which I dont mind doing!:D

Mayo Exile

It was gone from Sky One on Thursday night, was it on Sky News last night?

According to the Irish Daily Star today (Sat) all the journos downed tools on Thurs night and that was the end there and then........

Also I wonder will Sky keep the Irish ad breaks for Sky News viewers in RoI or merge the two with UK ads for all? My Strong FTA receiver still stores a "Sky News UK" and a "Sky News Eire" at the moment.

Solair

You can be 100% sure that sky will keep the channels seperate for ads, they do this with many other channels as it is and Sky News is one takes more viewers than most.

Sky News Ireland, the local bulletin service, simply wasn't getting the numbers. The channel itself is still highly successful in Ireland, but in it's normal UK format.

The whole venture reminds me of Sky Scottish which also had its plug pulled after a similar length of time on air.

watty

They have Sky ROI sat and Sky ROI cable long before there was an Irish news.

DMC

Mayo Exile wrote:

According to the Irish Daily Star today (Sat) all the journos downed tools on Thurs night and that was the end there and then........

No surprise really, if you remember back to last year, and the closure of the ITV News Channel. Initially it was planned to close at the end of January, but the journalists argued to close it before Christmas, as it wasn't really worth keeping a service going over the holiday period.

Sky News Ireland was just a bit more sudden.

As discussed, they will keep an Irish veneer going in ads alone....