Sky News thread

Those caps are so bad they're actually quite funny. I think we may have found the designer of the original Channel 5 news set.

Cheap multi-coloured plastic desks.
Presenters "perched" chatting informally about the news. Note magazines obscuring the front page of the Daily Mirror (look out for The Sun tomorrow for balance) and a handbag on desk to ensure viewers understand the atmosphere in "the heart of the newsroom". I can just see the Trisha audience turning over in their tens.
And what can only be described as a highly uninspiring blue plasticy background, with "Sky News" looking decidedly wonky whilst managing to be obscured by the DOG saying....Sky News.

Sheer genius.

The SKYnews is angled, because the camera was not properly lined up. And the two presenters perched on the desk, was as the two of them were giving a roundup of the news and closing the programme.

Perhaps you should watch it as opposed to passing judgement over pictures.

At least the presenters actually talk to each other, unlike News 24, where half the time you get the impression that if one anchor looked to the side they'd be genuinely shocked, at the end of their three hour shift, to find that another had been sitting next to them all the while.

Irrelevant- this is presumably part of the 'new look'. If the two presenters are rounding up the news in that cap, then perching on a multi-coloured plastic desk is part of their output. And I'm sure it's been carefully thought out and passed through several focus groups of daytime viewers. It still doesn't make it good.



You know, you make this point a lot, but it's not very good. Perhaps you like watching informal, relaxed, chatty news, delivered by presenters who value style over substance. Personally I prefer a bit of professionalism. Perching on the end of desks doesn't make the news more friendly and it sure as hell doesn't make it more interesting. But covering more stories and using a faster pace to your presenting does- and that doesn't need pathetic forced and rehearsed quips. Listening to filler "chats" between the presenters is largely embarassing (that goes for when N24 presenters do it too). Do you not realise the presenters have been told by their bosses to 'chat informally about something up to the ads'? It's just so false and pretentious.

That is your opinion, I disagree 100% And I'm sure many more agree with me


It is your opinion that the Presenters at sky prefer style over substance. To me, most come across as being personally interested in the stories. Almost all of them have a deep background in journalism, which gives them authority in what they speak.

To have the presenters acknowledge the existance of the other, cannot be bad, and if they can talk and sometimes joke about the stories, I cant see anything wrong with that. Shows they are much more than robotic 'read out' machines!

And as for the 'banter on request' idea of yours, I believe it to be a most cynical view, which I do not subscribe to, and is just as applicable to the BBC's "Old Boy's Network" and "Liquid Lunch" approach to the news. And ITN's way of working...

So the new graphics are being launched soon. Are they going to be 'totally radical' like the News 24 ones, and use loads of animation and sounds, or are they going to tone down, in true Sky News fashion?*
*sarcasm

what I have heard from a few people now is smaller graphics, with colour changes and a tweaked slug!

Well in case you hadn't notice the TOTH sequence is timed with the preceeding ads. So when an hour finishes on Sky News it automatically cuts in with ads to time correctly up to the top of the hour. (The problem with having a fixed time countdown sequence).
Hence why you often see presenters cut off in their prime: "Stay with us here on...." being the most common of the lot.

Therefore the presenters have to "fill" to a certain time leading to "filler" chats often about the preceeding "light" story covered at about xx:53. It is therefore 'banter on request' and I personally find it tedious and patronising in the extreme.

Hard counts are nothing new. Any director can bring a programme out on time. To have a presenter to be cut off mid sentence is either the director not getting the countdown right, or the presenter not finishing on the count to zero.

Although it wouldn't normally be the director counting, it would be a PA or NTA.

Martin, you are the least qualified to tell anyone what to do. Anyone who sits up with a clock to see if new graphics come online dead on an hour isn't living in the real world.

Anyway, if you knew about camera, you'd know that no cameraman would set up his/her camera to not be level. Even the jib (polecam as you call it) is set to level. Professional studios don't have wonky tripods.

The shot you're refering to just looks like the camera is quite a distance from the presenter, meaning the depth of field makes the ofset back wall seem pointing up. Whatever the shot, the cameras/tripods are not the fault.

Lol. Some news galleries don't have the luxury of a PA. Bless Dorothy's little heart, but she can be annoying at times.