The TV Forum Breaking News Benchmark

Whilst watching the 3 main 24 hour news channels from the Wellington Dungeon, I have noted that there is usually a pattern in which channels break news first:

1) Sky News
2) ITV News Channel
3) BBC News 24

There are some advocates of either news channel above who will bitterly dispute that order I have listed these, however, I feel it to be true in most cases.

However, why not have a benchmark of the effectiveness of each channel, and maybe, over a few weeks compute the overall top first to break news channel?

First case:

Sky News: Jane Tomlinson completes second stage of Triathlon
ITVNC: Nowt
BBCN24: Nowt

Over to you, and I'll be adding more later myself!

Oh dear this old chestnut again. May I ask if the difference in a few minutes either way really makes a difference?

We're talking about people setting-up, preparing a package and liaising with the studio director - not automatons. Of course someone will get there first.

Perhaps we should set up a "Who was Fastest Forum" for this type of thread?

A few minutes does make a difference. That's the whole point of a rolling news channel - it's main selling point if you want.

Considering how much public money N24 costs to run, one should be very alarmed that a better service is being provided by the commercial sector.

Sky are actually following Jane Tomlinson through the complete triathlon today, as they did when she rode from John O'Groats to Lands End with Sky repoter Ian Dovaston riding alone with her for part of the journey.

Ian is again covering today's event for Sky News.

Better and quicker are not the same thing.

They're not supposed to be competing with Sky you muppet. Perhaps the extra few minutes delay before they decide to put BREAKING NEWS on the screen so you can go use some Kleenex is so they actually check their facts, instead of relying on PA wires.

You're certainly a charmer, arn't you, calling people a muppet who you don't know. Nice.... I only hope you're not like that with people in real life.

Anyway, I disagree. The main network channels, such as BBC 1 and BBC 2 are public service channels, yet they do nothing but try to compete with their commercial rivals. They have done so for years. I don't see any reason why N24 is different from Sky in this respect - indeed N24 has even adopted the Sky News style of presentation (at least in part)

Hmmm ... perhaps a recent government report might have something to do with N24 slowing down on the Breaking News stuff??

And, I'll reiterate (to use a member's name), you're a muppet. Happy?

OH, COME ON!

Perhaps they aren't SUPPOSED to be competing with Sky, but they've spent the last few years ripping off their ideas so it's hard to believe otherwise.

It's not just with the wires, though, Mr West - they are even slower with court cases and always seem scared to break out of their headline updates or business reports or sports coverage when they actually have a concrete piece of information. They wait until they are scheduled to return to news coverage and then tell you about it. Even when there is nothing remotely interesting happening, the coverage is still pedestrian and slow.

Witness their pathetic attemps at covering the Hutton Inquiry, even I am prepared to admit that ITV have done it better. Ironic, really that they are being so slow and trying to ensure that everything is just right for their coverage of it when we probably wouldn't be having it were it not for shoddy reporting by the Beeb in the first place.

Anyway - good news, the BBC is now only ONE DAY behind with events. Little "missing Stacey" and her "Well, he's a paedo, isn't he?" 46 year old friend was headlining Sky yesterday afternoon; it was third in the running order on News 24, was second a bit later and is now first today.

Good stuff. It's not the case that News 24 is less tabloid than Sky, it's just that they're not as good at it. When they realise how interesting a story might be, they're all over it, but usually it takes them a day - or two days in the case of Soham.

But how many times have Sky broken news items that have turned out to to be wrong or not true at all - especially during the Iraq War?

That's why there is a delay, the BBC do more checks on the news story before broadcasting it.

Hehehe - yeah! C'mon! Fight fight fight!



And that's a bad thing? How many times have Sky got things wrong because of their reliance on using wires for breaking news? I mean, perhaps we should rename Sky's breaking news coverage as "Sky Breaking News, thanks to PA wires"?



Sky's reconstructions are nothing short of embaressing.



Nothing has yet been proved or disproved.



How can they be a day behind when you just said it was in their running order yesterday?



There I will agree- the BBC has no place producing tabloid-style programming -- but what little of it that appeared on N24 has started to go.

But I think that just adds to the general atmosphere and watchability of the channel. The presenters and guests speculating about sketchy wire reports is what makes Sky News more watchable. Sure, they make mistakes, but so does the BBC, in the case of the latter, those mistakes resulted in the death of a government scientist.