The Sky News Thread

Doesn't always happen. It depends what is in the chain - and happens more frequently on the international / YouTube feed than it does on the domestic / app feed.

One thing that’s interested me in the past - are Sky News unique in having a gallery and a separate TX in the UK? Is it because of different variants of the channel for different markets? Also, if something major kicks off news-wise during a break, who triggers the recall to gallery output and how is it done? Just by pressing a button?

Yes - that and ad breaks.
The gallery tells TX to crash out of the break, TX advances to the next “take gallery output” item in their running order.

BBC World operate like this, so does Al Jazeera English (although not in the UK of course)

It's pretty unlikely that something that major would 'kick off' without warning in a 3 minute break, plus it could take the studio and newsroom a lot longer to react and prepare to report it than it does for TX to cut to them.

I know at Sky the breaks are all flexible except the one. As long as the news gallery go for enough breaks in the hour all's fine, but they will be cut off at something like xx:56 for the top off the hour break. If they roll then the news gallery ask to pull the breaks and the implications of that are sorted later


I don't know what the situation at Sky and BBC World is (and they don't have recorded programming) but I know at Al Jazeera if news wants to break into a programme with a major story, or roll and displace a programme they have to keep going, pessentation won't go back to the programme. So the newsrooms there have to be sure they have a something substantial to go with, they won't usually just break in with a one line 'breaking' item.

One problem with this is that if they're covering something live and it is 32 minutes past the hour they either have to decide whether to pull it for a back half hour programme or continue till the top of the hour, hurriedly copy and pasting items into the running order to fill

Thanks for replying. Are TX and the gallery in the same area so they can just shout it over or is it done via a talkback link?

Thanks for this... I’ve seen Sky News crash out of breaks quite often, especially if there is a news conference that’s started early or similar.... question though... why is there a mandatory break at xx:56? Just curious..

When I was given a tour round Sky's TX area in the Sky Studios building the Sky News TX suite was there. The Sky News studio/gallery were in their own building across the road.

I'm not sure where Sky News is now, the atrium is in Sky Central, the gallery elsewhere? But I would have thought it's playout would be still withthe other channels, it's just easier in terms of operations and support

The two galleries are on the second floor of Sky Studios alongside the newsroom, the TX suites on the fourth floor I believe. So yes, communication is over talkback.


There needs to be a break for the change of gallery staff, presenter (if required), etc. It’s not mandatory, but it’s the only hard break which TX will take at a set time - obviously if there is a back half hour such as the Press Preview replay then there will be a hard take for that (there is no break between the studio and replay), and Sportsline will have a hard break just before it for the international filler to run to time. The xx:57 break can be dropped as required - just like any other break - and often is just before a big press conference (e.g. the 16:57 break is dropped whenever there’s a 5pm Number 10 presser which is running on time).

It's also so they can hit the top of the hour at spot-on xx:00:00. TX doesn't want to be suddenly left dropping trails and adverts to shorten the break, and the adverts can't stray into the next hour because of advertising rules.

The BBC News Channel doesn't have the same issue with advertising but they do have to hit the top of the hour precisely. They solve the problem with their countdown sequence which can fill up to 90 seconds.

Interesting choice of guest by Sky this morning.

One can only assume that Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen was busy.

At 0945, we will be speaking to impressionist Rory Bremner about the end of the Trump presidency

🕘 0945
📺 Channel 501
📲 Watch live: https://t.co/7ryzTeiRJe pic.twitter.com/oyWwdXtqSf

— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 20, 2021

Rory Bremner has been involved in political satire and commentary for his whole career. I don't follow him closely so I don't know if he does a Trump impression, but mimicking and mocking requires close observation and reflection. Not sure I see the comparison to Llewellyn-Bowen myself. We'll probably have days of commentary from 'straight' commentators, it's nice to have something that isn't that at some point.

There isn't one. It's a light-hearted comment, Joe.