I'm a big Sky News fan but have to say that theyhave had their asses spanked badly by the Beeb on this earthquake. Even ITV News seem to have more reporters out there.
Sky did mess up Katrina and tried to make up for it by preempting Rita- that was a mistake and a waste of money.
But I think you're being a bit harsh on the relaunch effect- this is the biggest relaunch in Sky News' history...a simply massive logistical and technical operation that utterly dwarfs the rebuilding of News 24 a couple of years ago. And that managed to make News 24 look a presentational mess for weeks on end (working out of the CSO studio), often simulcasting with World and therefore providing an inferior service than usual.
But once the relaunch happened, the masses were wooed and they've stayed with the channel ever since. Sky's new studio will wow the masses and it will win back a large chunk of News 24's audience. Of that I have little doubt.
The real test for Sky is whether they can truly justify the relaunch cost and shift away from rolling news to programming by breaking out of the ratings box that has limited 24 hour news channels in this country since Sky started. Can Sky's presenter led hours draw in a regular viewership beyond the status quo of a small channel-skipping audience looking for a quick news fix?
I have serious doubts on this point- I feel the relaunch will take Sky back ahead of News 24 and back to audience share levels seen before News 24's recent resurgence. But I don't think it'll break out of that ratings box...and this I personally feel will lead to a return to the current style rolling news within a year (but with better presentation from the new studio).
Sorry for that ramble- I've gone completely off topic!
I'd be surprised if they were back to rolling news in a year. You've got to remember that it took Fox at least 3 years before people really started to pick up the scent of their evening line up and stick with it, and that's in a country that's well used to watching cable news channels for a long period.
That said, the one thing Sky don't have is patience. What I would expect is that the existing audience will remain, and that they'll stay watching for a longer period. Plus, having just looked at the monthly figures for July, Sky were marginally ahead of News 24 anyway, so let us be realistic... News 24 haven't run miles away into the lead by any stretch.
The earthquake, as has been said, hasn't really come at a good time for them. Given that Islamabad is a very easy place to get to from the UK, if they were sending presenters they'd have been there by now. But credit to the Beeb, they managed to mobilise people very quickly, though why they send out Lyse Doucet is a mystery to me. She may be talented, but her voice lends a level of unenthusiasm to a situation that is unrivalled by anyone.
When I say "back to rolling news in a year", I don't expect them to drop the programme titles or presenters, just to shift back to what they've always done. I expect from the relaunch we'll see lots of new "show" type features (feature interviews and discussions etc.)- these are things I see slowing down the pace of the channel during the "show" slots and these are the things I see going within a year.
I really don't see a regular audience for this kind of thing in the UK (far too few people even sample the news channels on any given day compared to America- our breakfast shows are dominated by terrestrial TV delivering news, not news channels). If Sky prove me wrong then all credit to them..they deserve all the success (and money) they will earn.
Yep, Sky have been painfully slow on this one, as they were on Hurricane Katrina. Bizarrely they went major on Hurricane Rita before it struck- and people moved on quite quickly from that one.
Partly bad luck, partly no doubt due to their major relaunch in 2 weeks time.
I'm sure things will improve for them then.
I'm not sure luck comes into it - the BBC made the right decisions early on, committed to them and got the people and kit moving within a few hours of the story breaking. ITN got a few people moving. Sky apparently didn't.
The news channels tend to look at 1700 as the most important hour of the day. There was an embarrassing gulf between News24 and Sky today - I don't think I've ever seen the BBC trounce Sky so comprehensively in response to a breaking story. Sky had one taped report from a reporter on the spot - the rest was done in London from agency footage. News24 was presented from the very centre of things, two on-the-ground reporter items, two local interviews and Lyse Doucet doing a nighttime walk-and-talk around some of the damage.
Sky might have a relaunch coming (with a gestation period resembling an elephant's), but that's no excuse for cocking up a story on this scale, or Katrina. Live on-air output is always more important than a pilot. It would have been a strategically sounder decision to throw everything at Katrina and this earthquake, and have to relaunch a week or two later - rather than miss out twice. Their hard-fought-for and well-deserved reputation is ebbing away - for the last couple of months they've been weak, and haven't provided the kind of coverage they're capable of. People who want decent news coverage are increasingly landing on News24 and Sky will have a big fight to win them back. It takes far less time to lose a good reputation than to gain one....
All good points and I agree with you largely.
Sky did mess up Katrina and tried to make up for it by preempting Rita- that was a mistake and a waste of money.
But I think you're being a bit harsh on the relaunch effect- this is the biggest relaunch in Sky News' history...a simply massive logistical and technical operation that utterly dwarfs the rebuilding of News 24 a couple of years ago. And that managed to make News 24 look a presentational mess for weeks on end (working out of the CSO studio), often simulcasting with World and therefore providing an inferior service than usual.
But once the relaunch happened, the masses were wooed and they've stayed with the channel ever since. Sky's new studio will wow the masses and it will win back a large chunk of News 24's audience. Of that I have little doubt.
The real test for Sky is whether they can truly justify the relaunch cost and shift away from rolling news to programming by breaking out of the ratings box that has limited 24 hour news channels in this country since Sky started. Can Sky's presenter led hours draw in a regular viewership beyond the status quo of a small channel-skipping audience looking for a quick news fix?
I have serious doubts on this point- I feel the relaunch will take Sky back ahead of News 24 and back to audience share levels seen before News 24's recent resurgence. But I don't think it'll break out of that ratings box...and this I personally feel will lead to a return to the current style rolling news within a year (but with better presentation from the new studio).
Sorry for that ramble- I've gone completely off topic!
I'd be surprised if they were back to rolling news in a year. You've got to remember that it took Fox at least 3 years before people really started to pick up the scent of their evening line up and stick with it, and that's in a country that's well used to watching cable news channels for a long period.
That said, the one thing Sky don't have is patience. What I would expect is that the existing audience will remain, and that they'll stay watching for a longer period. Plus, having just looked at the monthly figures for July, Sky were marginally ahead of News 24 anyway, so let us be realistic... News 24 haven't run miles away into the lead by any stretch.
The earthquake, as has been said, hasn't really come at a good time for them. Given that Islamabad is a very easy place to get to from the UK, if they were sending presenters they'd have been there by now. But credit to the Beeb, they managed to mobilise people very quickly, though why they send out Lyse Doucet is a mystery to me. She may be talented, but her voice lends a level of unenthusiasm to a situation that is unrivalled by anyone.
Of course another reason for not sending out anchor folk would be the budget. With the tsunami, pope's death and funeral, papal election, general election, terror attacks, hurricanes in the US and a major rebranding, the budget must have taken some battering this yera. Perhaps they're just saving money.
When I say "back to rolling news in a year", I don't expect them to drop the programme titles or presenters, just to shift back to what they've always done. I expect from the relaunch we'll see lots of new "show" type features (feature interviews and discussions etc.)- these are things I see slowing down the pace of the channel during the "show" slots and these are the things I see going within a year.
I really don't see a regular audience for this kind of thing in the UK (far too few people even sample the news channels on any given day compared to America- our breakfast shows are dominated by terrestrial TV delivering news, not news channels). If Sky prove me wrong then all credit to them..they deserve all the success (and money) they will earn.
Firstly, on Kennedy69's point: AFAIK, the relaunch has been entirely written off by BSkyB corporate, and isn't really included in the Sky News budget; I imagine the tsunami was to a certain extent too. Their Iraq and Kosovo war coverage was mostly paid for by the main PLC too, rather than being taken out of the Sky News budget. Sky News is such an expensive operation that it really isn't just run on the 35 million or so Sky claim... it's far, far more than that. The relaunch alone has cost over 20 million so far.
Back to the main point: I think it's very telling that Sky haven't put any non-news shows in the schedule, though. With Fox News you have things like Hannity and Colmes, O'Reilly, that business programme presented by a turd, etc etc. They aren't news, they're theatre; there's absolutely no 'news' in the O'Reilly Factor, it's just guests talking about issues of relatively low salience (how the LA Times is hypocritical, how a school is banning children from signing Christmas carols, dodgy police forces, that sort of crap).
In comparison, Sky have put their 7pm hour over to what sounds like a hard news show, and their 8pm hour to an international politics/current events show. Their 9pm, 10-10.30, and 11pm slots are also solid news hours with different agendas - so the 10pm slot is for a news wrap, the 11pm slot is for looking ahead to tomorrow, etc.
There's no Larry King-style stuff, debate shows, editorial shows, business shows, etc. What they've offered up is a diet of hard news in a different format. I think that the British public are well used to that sort of thing, and this country has probably the widest variety of any when it comes to news programming - from snappy Five News to the lengthy Channel 4, Newsnight, bulletins like the Six and the Ten, etc. To that end, they may have targetted the audience perfectly.
Firstly, on Kennedy69's point: AFAIK, the relaunch has been entirely written off by BSkyB corporate, and isn't really included in the Sky News budget; I imagine the tsunami was to a certain extent too.
mediaguardian posted:
The head of Sky News had to get the BSkyB chief executive, James Murdoch, to sign off extra cash, a figure "considerably north of £1m", to fund the broadcaster's widely praised coverage of the Asian tsunami disaster.
Nick Pollard said the tsunami coverage had not been funded out of Sky News's budget, but from extra cash, which Mr Murdoch and the Sky Networks managing director, Dawn Airey, both had to clear.