The Newsroom

The Sky News Thread

(October 2019)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
MO
Mouseboy33
Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....
Last edited by Mouseboy33 on 13 October 2020 8:21pm
VA
valley
Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....

It is fairly undeniable that the tone of the channel has changed significantly in the last ten years. Personally I think it's changed for the better, as the era of presentation shown in the video you linked is pretty over the top and now feels pretty dated. Watching pre-pandemic Sky Sports News with presenters running around between the different areas of the Newsroom felt dated, particularly compared with watching Sky News at the same time. Whilst this is a presentation forum we obviously talk about presentation, sometimes with nostalgia-tinted spectacles, but I think that if a member of the public put on Sky News today and saw a similar sort of thing to what we saw in the mid-to-late 2000's they wouldn't really see the point.

There is also the point that it is a lot harder in the age of automation and reduced crewing to justify having vast newsrooms, massive video walls and swooping jib moves for a rolling news channel where 90% of the time, the presenters are just linking to packages and talking to outside sources. Are they appropriate at times? Sure - look at the 2019 General Election where there was more creativity. I do think that Sky News try and let the quality of the journalism and the reporting take centre stage, and save certain things for big events like elections.
Jory, BFGArmy and CraigWills gave kudos
SK
skyviewer
Anyone else also noticed the revised graphic elements now more and more in use in the run up to the U.S. election. Just seen a bit of new split screen elements and the more shiny gleam effect moving down over the the red and blue embedded star in the graphic bars. A sign of a punctual election graphics refresh.
MA
Meridian AM
Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84iTgwylg7g


You are right. It feels and looks too much like BBC News now.
It doesn't keep me interested like it used to.
And can someone please finally change that awful, monotonous theme tune bed that plays every few minutes!!!!
VA
valley
Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84iTgwylg7g


You are right. It feels and looks too much like BBC News now.
It doesn't keep me interested like it used to.
And can someone please finally change that awful, monotonous theme tune bed that plays every few minutes!!!!

It’s played at the TOTH, going into breaks and during the BOTH headlines. Hardly every few minutes...
WO
Worzel
Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....

It is fairly undeniable that the tone of the channel has changed significantly in the last ten years. Personally I think it's changed for the better, as the era of presentation shown in the video you linked is pretty over the top and now feels pretty dated. Watching pre-pandemic Sky Sports News with presenters running around between the different areas of the Newsroom felt dated, particularly compared with watching Sky News at the same time. Whilst this is a presentation forum we obviously talk about presentation, sometimes with nostalgia-tinted spectacles, but I think that if a member of the public put on Sky News today and saw a similar sort of thing to what we saw in the mid-to-late 2000's they wouldn't really see the point.

There is also the point that it is a lot harder in the age of automation and reduced crewing to justify having vast newsrooms, massive video walls and swooping jib moves for a rolling news channel where 90% of the time, the presenters are just linking to packages and talking to outside sources. Are they appropriate at times? Sure - look at the 2019 General Election where there was more creativity. I do think that Sky News try and let the quality of the journalism and the reporting take centre stage, and save certain things for big events like elections.


I think Franceinfo get the balance right (my favourite European news channel). It looks like a news channel built in 2020. The presentation, graphics, look, pace and overall feel of the channel oozes quality, style and substance. If Sky News opted for something similar to that presentation wise it would certainly be fresh but also retain some of their more safe elements.

:-(
A former member
I think it’s fair to say a refresh is long overdue, but bold and brash is simply not what viewers want these days. Sky News in the early and mid noughties was very of its time.

It’s still leagues ahead of the BBC in my opinion.
Roger Darthwell, Brekkie and Ratflump gave kudos
CW
CraigWills
Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84iTgwylg7g


This constant stream of “Sky News isn’t what it used to be” is tedious. It borders on being worse than rota coverage. Not my call, but I’d almost suggest a new thread for this kind of rose tinted look back at yesteryear. While I can agree that a refresh could be in order and maybe some of the branding has gone a bit off beat - a breakfast slot no one knows what to call etc. - I doubt any refresh would bring us to anywhere like what people seem to be calling for every few days in this thread.

The clip you've linked isn’t too dissimilar to the use of the screen in the glass box, Colin Brazier on Sky News Today was standing at the screen going through the lockdown tiers, just today. Sky do have personality driven shows, the whole morning 7am-12pm is very presenter focused with Kay/Ian/Adam having their slots which have different formats utilising different way of presenting. Sky News Today, which tends to be the most general show of the day thus far, is mostly sat down behind the desk but they make use of the screen for interviews and graphics and sometimes stand up for certain elements as mentioned above. The Sarah Jane Mee show again differs from the preceding slot, by been all stood up, and again has a different brief with a more human interest skew; pre pandemic they’d often have guest in the studio in the corner area. I’ll not go further into the day as I feel like I’ve made my point, but I think people forget that sometimes it’s not about how the show is presented that differs it from one show to the other but it’s the running order and journalism.

The whole tone of the channel has changed. The mid 2000s are gone, ITV News had a pretty tabloid style back then. It’s changed considerably too. Sky was over the top, it may have been interesting to us having triple headed shows, people walking about massive studios and unnecessarily using various areas but it’s a news channel. Times change, Sky’s adapted and let’s remember while this is a presentation forum, Sky might have toned it down but the journalism is what’s most important.
Last edited by CraigWills on 14 October 2020 12:05am
BF
BFGArmy
Have to say the ‘Sky News presentation used to be more exciting’ chat is nearly as tedious at this stage as some on here find the current presentation - the rota talk is quite frankly interesting by comparison as at least discussion points seem to vary on it. Whereas the Sky News chat is groundhog day - the same people making the same points again and again. Surprised the ‘Tesco Extra’ analogy hasn’t been wheeled out.

The channel presentation isn’t as dynamic as it once was and could do with more ‘life’ sometimes but people forget while 2005-2010 may have been more attention grabbing, some of the content was utter tripe and rather tacky looking back (and would be eaten alive online today) and Kay Burley sprinting all around a large studio may excite us lot on here but look ridiculous to your average viewer.
At the end of the day content is king and Sky is good on that front.

Watching Sky News Tonight....presented by someone that vaguely resembles Stephen Dixon. Geeezz. His presenting style used to be amazing. This program is a complete snooze fest. Im sitting here wondering what happened?! Its all bunch of sighs and quiet talking and the repetitive theme bed. The image behind Stephen is actually warping or wobbling. Sighhh. The channel no longer has the "authoritative", sit-up and taken notice air about it. It always had a pacey slightly tabloid-esque (or populist) air about it without stepping over the line. Think BFMTV without having that flashy FOX NEWS craziness. Content aside and journalism aside. After all this is a presentation forum.

How do we go from this...to the presentation snoozefest we have now..And this was the quieter period.....

It is fairly undeniable that the tone of the channel has changed significantly in the last ten years. Personally I think it's changed for the better, as the era of presentation shown in the video you linked is pretty over the top and now feels pretty dated. Watching pre-pandemic Sky Sports News with presenters running around between the different areas of the Newsroom felt dated, particularly compared with watching Sky News at the same time. Whilst this is a presentation forum we obviously talk about presentation, sometimes with nostalgia-tinted spectacles, but I think that if a member of the public put on Sky News today and saw a similar sort of thing to what we saw in the mid-to-late 2000's they wouldn't really see the point.

There is also the point that it is a lot harder in the age of automation and reduced crewing to justify having vast newsrooms, massive video walls and swooping jib moves for a rolling news channel where 90% of the time, the presenters are just linking to packages and talking to outside sources. Are they appropriate at times? Sure - look at the 2019 General Election where there was more creativity. I do think that Sky News try and let the quality of the journalism and the reporting take centre stage, and save certain things for big events like elections.


I think Franceinfo get the balance right (my favourite European news channel). It looks like a news channel built in 2020. The presentation, graphics, look, pace and overall feel of the channel oozes quality, style and substance. If Sky News opted for something similar to that presentation wise it would certainly be fresh but also retain some of their more safe elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=449vM8dEwZY


I think though that’s just many of us just being won over by how a channel looks.
By accounts seen on the French TV thread, Franceinfo often isn’t equipped for breaking news at certain times to a quite embarassing degree that’d make BBC with UK breaking news in the evenings/at night seem nimble.

Whereas whenever I tune into Sky News day or night I’ll get the latest news well covered.
What’s the point in a channel looking pretty if it won’t give me the news as it happens.
Last edited by BFGArmy on 14 October 2020 12:49am
CA
cat
To get us off the “it isn’t what it used to be” nonsense...

... has anything more been announced about the not-happening NBC Sky World News channel?

Such as what will happen to the studio they had started to build in Osterley, the staff, any further plans for NBC and Sky to collaborate?

Showing Meet the Press for an hour is nice, but not quite the grand partnership that had been talked of. It’s been around two years since Comcast made the purchase...
NY
NYTV
cat posted:
To get us off the “it isn’t what it used to be” nonsense...

... has anything more been announced about the not-happening NBC Sky World News channel?

Such as what will happen to the studio they had started to build in Osterley, the staff, any further plans for NBC and Sky to collaborate?

Showing Meet the Press for an hour is nice, but not quite the grand partnership that had been talked of. It’s been around two years since Comcast made the purchase...

At last mention, all plans for the "NBC Sky World News" was dropped due to COVID-19.
WO
Worzel

I think though that’s just many of us just being won over by how a channel looks.
By accounts seen on the French TV thread, Franceinfo often isn’t equipped for breaking news at certain times to a quite embarassing degree that’d make BBC with UK breaking news in the evenings/at night seem nimble.

Whereas whenever I tune into Sky News day or night I’ll get the latest news well covered.
What’s the point in a channel looking pretty if it won’t give me the news as it happens.


I suspect that's probably more down to editorial and staffing issues, rather than how the channel is presented on screen style wise.

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