The Newsroom

BBC News overtakes Sky

Digital Spy report N24 overtaking Sky in polls (August 2004)

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MA
Matrix
Interesting article ive just found on DS.

BBC News 24 has pulled ahead of Sky News in the ratings , according to figures in Broadcast this week.

For eight out of the past ten weeks, the Beeb's rolling news station has been ahead in 15-minute weekly reach, with a total of 1.99 million viewers compared to Sky's 1.97 million.

Sky News remains ahead on audience share, with 0.63% against 0.54%.
FU
fusionlad Founding member
Let's hope Dawn Airey's money will help the channel bounce back. She admitted herself that News 24 were catching up.

Did we ever work out what the big investment was going to be for? Was it for the new studios?
CA
cat
I imagine it will be new studios and shows.

It has to go down the Fox route of a appointment-to-view evening line up, with well known faces presenting specialist shows. I think that's the only way they expect to get viewers in the evening.

Sky has looked lost the past few months... just a progessive plodding on and on, with no spectacularly good stuff to speak of.
TI
timmy
I reckon these figures are incredibly significant for the following reasons:

1/ Sky News' management constantly bang on that although News 24 sometimes pull level ratings it's during the big breaking stories where Sky surges ahead.
Over the last ten weeks there have been some major breaking stories where viewing figures for Sky have surged and equally so have News 24.

2/ There have been times when editorially Sky and News 24 have been poles apart, most notably with the Sven story where News 24, apart from reporting on Mark Palios' resignation, steered very clear of all the salacious tabloid detail that Sky aired. The same with the James Hewitt story. The figures show there is a clear appetite for "tabloid" TV news thanks to Sky, as there is equally an appetite for a more "broadsheet" approach, thanks to News 24.

Sky News has been incredibly pedestrian over the last few months and I reckon the management must be scratching their heads.
They have the flashy graphics, they have the very good presenters; they've got the newswall, a new Westminster studio, the SkyCopter, the polecam, Five News, the Skystrator and Julie Etchingham - yet viewing figures aren't improving and News 24 has overtaken them.

I think there are going to be huge changes at Sky News to try and lift themselves from BBC News 24's shadow and I don't think the changes are just going to be a new studio or pretty graphics.

Could the words 'Fox' and 'News' give us a clue? We'll have to wait and see.
CA
cat
timmy posted:
They have the flashy graphics, they have the very good presenters; they've got the newswall, a new Westminster studio, the SkyCopter, the polecam, Five News, the Skystrator and Julie Etchingham - yet viewing figures aren't improving and News 24 has overtaken them.


To be honest, I think News 24 have better graphics... a new Westminster studio would not contribute to ratings one bit, nor would the helicopter, the polecam, not sure how Five News would impact Sky News viewing figures, the skystrator has no impact... and Julie Etchingham, well, she is a good presenter, yes, but I don't think anyone tunes in specially for her. So a slightly baffling analysis you've given there.

I think it is more to do with the fact that News 24 has got a bit better and Sky has stuck around doing the same thing for essentially the past 3 years.

But I hope very much that they are worried. Rupert won't have the Beeb overtaking Sky for a long time, and hopefully any investment that is ordered will be put to good use rather than just further inflating Kay Burley's pay packet.
BR
Brekkie
As a relative new comer to 24 hr news, I really don't rate Sky News and BBC News 24 that highly.

The unknown (to me) Sky presenters really make it difficult to watch, and while News 24 generally has poor graphics (always blocking the screen) and annoy me with their 14:9 cropping, it's the emphasis on World or political news that really discourages me.

I personally prefer the ITV News Channel - familiar faces, a more domestic (dare I say, lightweight) agenda usually covered at a decent pace makes it more watchable, despite it's faults.
BB
Big Brother Founding member
Brekkie Boy posted:
As a relative new comer to 24 hr news, I really don't rate Sky News and BBC News 24 that highly.

The unknown (to me) Sky presenters really make it difficult to watch, and while News 24 generally has poor graphics (always blocking the screen) and annoy me with their 14:9 cropping, it's the emphasis on World or political news that really discourages me.

I personally prefer the ITV News Channel - familiar faces, a more domestic (dare I say, lightweight) agenda usually covered at a decent pace makes it more watchable, despite it's faults.


Each channel is essentially geared towards it's own set of viewers but they all compete for the viewers during big breaking news.

It's not really fair to take one's assumption that ITV or Sky or the BBC are better than each of the others because strictly speaking each channel caters for different viewers. Sky = Tabliod viewers. BBC = Broadsheet Viewers. ITV = A bit of both but not quite with the edge of the two main ones. Although I myself have found myself watching ITV over n24 and sky.

One thing I have noticed is that N24 is slowly going back to this "I can't be bothered we'll do it the same as we always do and put no effort in" mode. For example their Breaking News graphic I rarely see when Breaking News airs, that's not major but it's something that makes the channel.
IN
intheknow
Another factor in this might be that BBC News 24 is the most watched news channel on Freeview.

Recently, the rate of new Sky subscribers has stalled, whereas Freeview is still going from strength to strength.

As well as starting to lose viewers to News 24 on Sky Digital, and the fact that Freeview viewers are more likely to watch News 24 than Sky News, and the growing Freeview viewership, is contributing to News 24 slowly overtaking Sky News.
MA
Marcus Founding member
intheknow posted:
Another factor in this might be that BBC News 24 is the most watched news channel on Freeview.

.


Which goes to show that most viewers just aim for the first News Channel on the dial and stop there. Sky on satellite and BBC on Freeview
TV
tvmercia Founding member
[quote="Big Brother"]
Brekkie Boy posted:
Sky = Tabliod viewers. BBC = Broadsheet Viewers. ITV = A bit of both but not quite with the edge of the two main ones.

i should hope the beeb aren't marketing news 24 at the broadsheet reader market - else it'd be a very niche market channel, offering limited value to the average joe bloggs license fee payer.

i'd imagine the channel you could most closely describe as aimed at "broadsheet viewers" is bbc world (although not widely available/aimed at uk viewers) with its internationalist agenda with limited reference to popular culture.

its also unfair to describe sky news as tabloid. the only newschannel i could describe as tabloid is foxnews, with its overt mixture of information, comment and editorial.

news 24 and sky news are very similar - and targeted at the same audience. i suppose the only differences are sky contains adverts (but then n24 has it's fair share of bbc promos) and sky's purpose is to enhance the image and credibility of bskyb as national broadcaster. news24's function is to give more accessibility to the news gathered by the corporation and added value to license fee payers.

but as to the quality of news differing, the style or the editorial - i think it'd be unfair to rate sky any lower than n24.

if anything, itv news is the most dumbed down of the 3, but then i suppose there is a market for that.
SP
Spencer
Marcus posted:
intheknow posted:
Another factor in this might be that BBC News 24 is the most watched news channel on Freeview.

.


Which goes to show that most viewers just aim for the first News Channel on the dial and stop there. Sky on satellite and BBC on Freeview


I think it's probably more to do with most of Freeview's viewers being new to 24 hour news channels, and so they go for News 24 which has the trusted BBC brand, along with familiar reporters and presenters - plus of course it's been promoted widely on analogue BBC for ages.

Sky still has a substantial number of subscribers who've watched Sky News since the days when it was the only news channel, and so have got used to it, and got to trust it.
NW
NewsWatch
Matrix posted:
Interesting article ive just found on DS.

BBC News 24 has pulled ahead of Sky News in the ratings , according to figures in Broadcast this week.

For eight out of the past ten weeks, the Beeb's rolling news station has been ahead in 15-minute weekly reach, with a total of 1.99 million viewers compared to Sky's 1.97 million.

Sky News remains ahead on audience share, with 0.63% against 0.54%.


I am not that keen on Sky News, the graphics are horrid, whereas BBC News 24 has some nice graphics.

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