Euronews launching africanews, new euronews identity to come

I don't really care about the name either way; I just hope Euronews NBC -- or whatever it ends up being called -- considers adding live, anchored newscasts to its English-language service. This is an absolute must if the channel wants to become a serious, long-term competitor to the likes of CNN International and BBC World News.

Why try and compete on their terms? Why not focus on reinforcing their particular niche? I find their lack of on-screen on-air personalities a refreshing difference and cements their USP as a pure(ish) news channel. Change that and they just become another anonymous runner and rider in the great horse race / pissing contest that is modern newsotainment.

Because the NYTIMES article says its little watched in its current format. So why continue to prop up a format that might good but doesnt connect with a larger audience. Im sure this deal will just bolster NBC News and MSNBC. Not sure what benefit euronews gets outta the deal. Im also surprised the control NBC got for 25% stake ($30mil). Seems like a great deal for NBC.

Also the on-air name will probably be euronews [NBC logo] rather than the letters NBC. Comcast loves slapping the peacock on everything. They even adopted it as their corporate logo when they bought the network from GE.

I see their format as a handicap rather than a unique selling point. First of all, it makes coverage of breaking news difficult and the result often lifeless. And even if their approach is to emphasize hard news, personality matters in television. TV is a deeply personal medium, and a format that purposefully eschews human faces tends to -- perhaps counterintuitively -- create a barrier between the viewer and the information being provided. That's why practically all broadcasters have used in-vision news anchors since the 1950s. (Remember the BBC's out-of-vision news broadcasts? They were gone as soon as ITN started.)

I personally quite like the current format as it allows a single feed to cover several languages (which I also like as a person doing French and German GCSEs ). Also, I can't find anything disputing the claim that it is the most-watched news channel in Europe. They are clearly doing something right, otherwise, people wouldn't tune in.

The latest comprehensive report I could find is this Council of Europe study from 2013 ( http://www.obs.coe.int/documents/205595/264629/European+news+Market+2013+FINAL.pdf/116afdf3-758b-4572-af0f-61297651ae80 ).

At the time, BBC World News, CNN International, and/or Sky News had higher viewing figures than Euronews, depending on whether one counted daily, weekly, or monthly figures (section 8.1).

I remember seeing some studies showing Euronews on top, but I believe those all counted early-morning and late-night terrestrial retransmissions of the channel on EBU-member broadcasters.

OK. I'm clearly wrong. I probably found the studies inc. early-morning & late-night terrestrial retransmissions (Thanks for correcting me by the way). However, it still appears that Euronews is among the more frequently viewed news channels (3/4 out of 9) and my point still stands that people seem to have no issue with the current format. However , I agree with your earlier point that the format is a handicap during breaking news stories.

My pleasure, but you're not necessarily wrong. Pan-European viewership surveys are notoriously difficult to carry out, and because the methodology tends to vary, you can get very different results from equally credible sources.

Let's just agree that Euronews isn't struggling for viewers with the current format.

A few things:

If we're talking about Euronews ratings, then the EBU simulcasts should absolutely be counted. The 6h00 simulcast on France 3 is the channel's only morning news, and it's the only morning news of the big three in France aside from Télématin. I'm not sure how well it does exactly, but the point remains that these simulcasts on national broadcasters are a major source of exposure to Euronews.

Secondly, Euronews is either great or awful depending on what kind of TV news viewer you are. If you're someone who parks themselves in front of the TV to watch news for an hour or more in one sitting every day, then Euronews is not for you (as long as you're primarily consuming news in English). But if you're a casual news consumer who only watches 15-30 minutes of news in the morning or at night to get caught up to speed with what's happening in the world, then no channel gives you a better, concisely-produced, and comprehensive newscast than Euronews. I also think that the Euronews effect of providing a high quality, neutral voice in a local language in many places where the press is often restricted is a great thing (think of the services in Persian, Hungarian, Ukranian, Turkish, etc.)

Thirdly, I think Euronews has done a good job at adding a human touch to the channel in recent years. More correspondents who work directly for Euronews front many of their own reports now, and the mini-shows that run after the main newscast are often studio-based with a regular presenter (albeit dubbed in all the other languages). In a perfect world with an unlimited budget, each language service would have its own on-air presenter team for at least the weekday morning and evening hours. But that would be quite an undertaking, though perhaps one that NBC may want to explore. But it's also not just on TV — Euronews has a big footprint online, where I think the anchorless, clip-driven format works very well. After all, that's what pretty much every news outlet is doing with Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram right now.

It will be interesting to see what NBC wants to do with Euronews. I think it's too early to tell from the press releases what this all means. Does Euronews get NBC branding, peacock and all, along with a cleaned up, commercialized programming strategy? Or is Euronews merely an instrument to provide NBC with more international content? Or will NBC try to start an international edition of MSNBC using resources from CNBC Worldwide and Euronews? Should be interesting, especially considering that there are still 25 other shareholders in Euronews.

I tend to agree with this, but isn't the second group becoming smaller as more and more people get the day's news online? This is, after all, the reason why CNN Headline News essentially shut down and why the ITN (later ITV) News Channel didn't make it with its just-the-facts approach. For better or for worse, the leading news channels, including CNN International and BBC World News, are building their reputations with breaking news, extended analysis, and live interviews -- that is, elements that go beyond the day's headlines.

Can Euronews maintain or even strengthen its brand by going against today's trends? Perhaps, but I have my doubts.

That's why I think that Euronews is well-suited for the digital age. A typical story on Euronews lasts 60-90 seconds and synthesizes good video and sound. In other words, it's a very similar format to the types of videos that AJ+, Buzzfeed, CNN, and the BBC churn out on their social media platforms. And I'd argue that Euronews on TV has at least some variability. The first 10-15 minutes are a swift recap of 8-12 top stories, sure, and then there's No Comment in the back half, but then the rest of the half hour is filled with something different every time. A little repetitive, yes, but not quite to the level of Headline News back in the day when TV Guide would print the newswheel telling you exactly at how many minutes past the hour every hour you could expect to see Dollars and Sense, Sports, etc.