Sky News relaunch 24th October - Sky News Ireland at 7 moves to 6:30pm

DMC

Sky News' much anticipated new look happens on Monday 24th October.
Bigger studio, more presenter led programmes, and widescreen are some of the things occuring.

I see Lyngsat has the new logo.

xstatic

Fantastic news. The widescreen presentation will allow for a truly cinematic news experience.

Mossy Monk

do i detect a note of sarcasm

JohnC.

xstatic wrote:

Fantastic news. The widescreen presentation will allow for a truly cinematic news experience.

I think their hand was forced on the widescreen matter when Eamonn Holmes joined them

Mossy Monk

roffle tbh

i am more interested than happy with this widescreen on Sky News. the extra room will probably be used for more tickers, and extra BREAKING NEWS bar and so on

DMC

Hardly, I think.

Unlike RTÉ (Sport), and as BBC News 24 have shown, Sky News will probably squeeze all their graphics into the 4:3 safe area.

Mossy Monk

i was being sarcastic
when anything happens Sky News goes practically red with that fecking Breaking News bar

xstatic

Mossy Monk wrote:

when anything happens Sky News goes practically red with that fecking Breaking News bar

That would be the Sky News Flash - with the swoosh sound effect.

icdg

Know I don't normally start threads, but anyway...

Thought everyone would like to know that Sky's new schedule press release confirms that Sky News Ireland at 7 is moving to 6:30pm. Opposite Six-One and News at 6:30. Very bad move IMO.

What are other peoples thoughts? Sky haven't been very public about this, the SNI section of the Sky Publicity website hasn't been updated...

Mossy Monk

are they mad. they have no hope at all

Charles Slane

I guess it has something to do with the Sky News programme-style schedule.

The Irish Sky News will replace Sportsline on the UK service so that Irish viewers can see all of the hour-long World Report (starts at 7pm)

Foggy43

What!
People actually watch it :eek:

I watched it once and it wasn't Irish News! It should have been called International News!

Why don't they just show the RTE 6.01 News. From 9.30 show the RTE 9pm news.

Actually, I'd rather An Nuacht! It seems to cover actual Irish News!

JohnC.

So an Irish news service should only cover Irish news? Forget the rest of the world exists? And there is plenty of Irish news on it. Are you going to slate RTÉ for having international stories too?

JohnC.

They just had a kind of "preview" on Sky News. They showed very little of the actual studio and no graphics. They said they are trying to keep it under wraps until Monday. But from what they did show, it looks like some kind of sci-fi set. Like the bridge of the Enterprise on a bigger scale.

I think they may be showing this every hour, sometime in the last 15 minutes of each hour.

icdg

Thought that these threads should be merged since one event is the cause of the other...

Also SNI will get a new look alongside Sky News. The new SNI logo is on-line at www.skypressoffice.co.uk .

JohnC.

icdg wrote:

The new SNI logo is on-line at www.skypressoffice.co.uk .

Interesting site. I didn't know about it before. This "Virtual Newsroom" looks interesting. Shame I only have 56k and it takes time to load. I've always been a bit interested in getting a proper view of the studio outside of what you see on TV. Shame they don't seem to have one for the current studio.

ro2

Here's a virtual tour of the new studio and pictures of how it was built:

http://www.randommedia.co.uk/clients/sky/rfts/

http://www.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/picture_gallery/0,,31100-1198894,00.html

Richard

The New look is interesting. I really like the set, but the music is just a revamp of the old one and the titles are a bit poo IMHO.

It is widescreen on Freeview, however, which came as a bit of a surprise. I suppose they needed to do that to fit Eamonn Holmes in...:D

Round Cable

They made a very good job; widescreen, less on screen clutter and faster interactive. Good job Sky.

Charles Slane

Yeah, I'm impressed ! Nice job !

Mossy Monk

the Sky News Active looks so much better also. and it loads very quickly also

SPDUB

DMC wrote:

Hardly, I think.

Unlike RTÉ (Sport), and as BBC News 24 have shown, Sky News will probably squeeze all their graphics into the 4:3 safe area.

Not on NTl analogue

DMC

Is it in 14:9 on NTL analogue?

I have a portable set to 4:3 from the Sky Digibox, and I can see the URL peeking before the clock.

DMC

As for the relaunch itself.... I can see where this can fail.....

BSkyB have pumped huge money at Sky News this time; huge set, dedicated teams working only on the 7pm and 8pm shows....

I really was not impressed with James Rubin. Its easy to see this is his first anchor role on TV... very wooden and questions that went on for minutes. An example, he asked Adam Boulton a really long question, easily it lasted a minute or more. Boulton's answer took less than 20 secs.

As for the "Sky Report" that preceded it, I don't think a human interest programme like "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" is Sky News' style. What happens when there is breaking news story, that could last days like war or a big death etc. ? I remember that when the Iraq War started, you didn't see a weather forecast or sports report for days, if not weeks! That's a lot of staff doing really nowt.
Sky News is mainly watched by men, so I can see the Sky Report not being a big draw for the usual viewers. Maybe they are trying to attract more women, but don't dumb down as far as going down the women's mag type human interest stories.

Sky tried this before with Littlejohn and news-by-women thing that Kate Silverton (now of BBC News 24) did for a time. They got quietly dropped once rolling news was needed for a news story.

I haven't mentioned the set. News studios of that magnitude are only needed for general elections, tbh. While I always liked the video wall, I do think this is very much OTT. If you look at News 24, they have 3 presentation areas on the same level in a small-ish studio, and that's all that's really needed. No need for a balcony looking down on the whole area. Sky News did need another area for presenters could go too, but I can see Eamonn Holmes running out of puff some morning soon!!

One thing I do like is the on screen graphics and astons, much better. Less tabloid looking. I never equated Sky News as being tabloid, but the old breaking news graphics were trashy.

Sky News say they are the biggest and best. Maybe this will show that going bigger is not always the best.

Richard

DMC wrote:

One thing I do like is the on screen graphics and astons, much better. Less tabloid looking. I never equated Sky News as being tabloid, but the old breaking news graphics were trashy.

I agree. I liked the graphics from the start. And, further to my earlier comments, the titles and music is growing on me.

What about Sky News Ireland? Has its set changed much?

icdg

Yep, Sky News Ireland's got a makeover too, Much the same studio as before, but the cyan colour-scheme has been repainted red and blue. Grainne now has a (smallish) desk as well. Oddly enough, the ident before it is the regular Sky News ident with just a different logo animation - for those yet to see it, the new Sky News ident features the Iselworth studio a lot... There's an "Eye on Ireland" segment this week... sounds so American (well CBS anyway).

The new astons are so improved on the old, its difficult to exagerate. The old astons were the worst on TV (until TV3 came out with their new look, that is!). They had gotten smaller over the four years that look was on air, but they were still awful. One thing I would do is put the story title at the top and the names in the main aston. They've gone from super-sized to the smallest name astons on TV. Sky News Ireland is better in this regard, they use two-line name astons.

Good to see programme names back - they had always been a part of the pre-2001 Sky News. Sky World News Tonight needs a new presenter though, James Rubin is terrible.

DMC

I can't say I'm really surprised..... http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,1602080,00.html

Rubin slumps on second day

Jason Deans, broadcasting editor
Thursday October 27, 2005

One of the most high profile new shows in Sky News' relaunched programming line-up, starring former Clinton aide James Rubin, attracted just 1,000 viewers for half an hour on Tuesday night.

World News Tonight with James Rubin at 8pm takes a relatively highbrow look at the day's international events, launching on Monday night with an interview with Tony Blair.

The Blair interview helped the first edition of World News Tonight attract 49,000 viewers, according to unofficial overnights - increasing Sky News' ratings in the slot by 145% compared with the previous four weeks.

However, since then World News Tonight has slipped back, with an average of 24,750 viewers over its first three days.

And on Tuesday night, the show averaged just 5,000 viewers across the hour from 8pm, and attracted only 1,000 between 8.15pm and 8.45pm.

The same evening, rival service BBC News 24 was watched by an average of 22,750 viewers between 8pm and 9pm.

Overall, News 24 has averaged 39,500 viewers between in the hour from 8pm over the first three days of this week.

News 24 is also ahead in the hour from 7pm, when the BBC channel's News 24 Tonight show is up against The Sky Report with Julie Etchingham - another new show.

So far this week, News 24 Tonight is averaging 80,250 viewers, while The Sky Report is on 32,250.

Sunrise averaged 48,000 viewers and a 2% share of viewing, compared with an average of 42,000 and 1.55% for that slot over the previous four weeks.

At 7pm, The Sky Report with Julie Etchingham increased share by 15% and averaged 31,000 viewers. Then at 8pm James Rubin's World News Tonight increased share by 145% with 49,000 tuning in.

Overall, the pattern was the same as before the re-launch, with Sky beating News 24 in the morning, then the BBC's station pulling away in the afternoon.

However, in the mornings Sky News has turned the tables, with Sunrise, fronted by new recruit Eamonn Holmes and Lorna Dunkley, attracting an average of 40,000 viewers between 6am and 9am since Monday's relaunch.

During the same period, News 24 has been averaging just 5,000 viewers. And on Tuesday morning between 6.30am and 7.15am, the channel had a zero rating - less than 1,000 viewers.

"We're now into day four and we're pleased with the content the programmes have been delivering," said Nick Pollard, head of Sky News.

"The channel is weaving in breaking news, and programmes such as Kay Burley's Lunchtime Live are generating news, as well as breaking stories."

JohnC.

Was it my imagination, or did I see the entire circular section containing the main desk revolving? I only saw it for about 3 seconds and I'm sure it wasn't the camera moving, giving the illusion, as the newswall and other stuff seemed to be perfectly motionless.

icdg

Yep, it does that!

CNBC (US) used to have a desk that did that as well, although mostly out of vision, before they got that monstosity of a studio complex they have now.