Five News

http://members.lycos.co.uk/ohwhatanight/five10.JPG

The balcony doesn't seem usable- in fact it seems that the height of the ceiling isn't sufficient for 2 levels given the lighting requirements.

Given that Sky News are moving into a new studio next door (or at least in the same building), does this not suggest that sky news' "double-decked" effort may not be as many have forseen?

Another balcony for show (with "update stairs") or will there genuinely be enough height to accomodate filming on 2 levels? I'm no longer convinced.

Anyone on the inside know?

I was thinking the same thing, but the height of the building it is housed in is a great deal higher than the Five News studio, so I imagine that will not be an issue for Sky News.

It is probably just the case that the Five studio was designed in that way... realistically, there isn't any point in having a huge studio for 30 minute programmes. Kirsty barely leaves the seat as it is.

I'm sure that if they'd wanted a proper, two-decked studio area they could've had it. As it was, there was no need, so they didn't.

Ooh. Interesting point, obviously I wouldn't know, I just don't see the point in a second level for no reason. At least ITV made theirs look as though it was being used by the same person walking across at exactly the same time everyday, but still.

It depends where the news reader comes to. Like downstairs Charlie reached near the top of that purple part on the lower level.

From the close up on the mid section of the stairs, it looks as if it would be just enough height against the wall. The only problem would be those lights that look as though they've been put there to make sure everybody knows that they've got lights.

I don't think they add anything to it in anyway.

I just don't like the waste of a design. If something's included within the design, use it.

True it does use the height that they have to create a grander approach, but it could work better. They have the jib in there anyway, if they could get up on the balconey it would be nice to see it used.
Especially if they ended up using the lower floor in the same way that they use the floor on ITV News and the Newsroom on Sky News to create a floor map.

I know it's early days, but the programme seemed very very disappointing to me.

There were some good aspects - the awful theme tune which sounded like someone was playing Classic FM in the background has been ditched, to make way for a more understated theme which sounds more news-like (and is still buzzing about in my head right now - argh).

Sky has sensibly ditched the extremely cheap weather map and symbol used by ITN, which combined with Lara Lewington made it look like a L!ve TV update, and used their graphics. This is the best way to go - it certainly seems the most accurate way to forecast.

Bad parts? Kirsty Young still seems very patronising, as does the whole direction of the programme. No doubt assuming anyone with any intelligence is watching Channel 4 (if they can hear it, goes by tonight's performance), there was quite a bit of dumbed down crap. The worst example of this was John Reid's visit to a smoker's house - the political points being made during this 'visit' were about as subtle as Monty Burns in a certain Simpsons episode. Leading the tsunami coverage with what the government is doing, rather than what the people (and therefore viewers), or the young kid who has been kidnapped, was also a terrible decision.

Not a patch on Sky News itself - I don't know why they haven't just adopted their entire presentation package, in the interests of branding and also for it to look any good whatsoever, and be generally superior, as well as being a good advert for the service itself (and therefore Sky dishes).

Well SKY¦News is a 24 hour news channel (!) whereas five news is a few hours worth of bulletins a day aired on five! There is NO reason why five would want, or allow, SKY branding on their channel. They never allowed ITN branding (or now, ITV branding) and what would branding five news as SKY¦News actually achieve?

five do NOT want the news service to act as an advert for SKY¦News!!! ps is it correct to start the above sentence with a lower case 'f' even though it's the first letter of the sentence?

A sincerely genuine question: why do you do that ¦ thing with "SKY¦News"? I just don't geddit! On their website it's written as Sky News. I just wondered, that's all!

Having said that, I agree with all your points on the branding issue with Sky and Five. Sky has simply become a 'production company' as a news service provider and merits no additional branding for Sky other than an endcap - just like everyone else.

Well I didn't watch it properly, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 7pm bulletin wasn't just a shortened rehash of 5.30 - the agenda was quite different, and there were several reports/lives which weren't in the 5.30 programme.

It seemed nice and pacy and had a high story count, whereas the 12 noon and 5.30 programmes have seemed a little thin and unsubstantial.

I'm affraid I'm one of those that don't like the new weather graphics, whenever I've watched skynews I've always been puzzled, they never give me any depth. I can always tell where it will be raining, but that's it!

I'd much prefer the older simpler graphics added, or something similar like this...
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/fivenewsweatheroldnew.jpg

Like somebody suggested, they produced great weather graphics for RI:SE, even though in the first version of RI:SE they kept adding random things to their map.

Yeah I see what you mean. If anything was a rehash it was the 5:30 with many stories being almost the same as the news at noon, with most reports being the same.

It will be interesting to see how Kate will handle the 7pm programme on Thursday.

What will be happening this week as Julie isn't in the UK at the moment, will she be coming back for Thursday or will Kirsty or Kate fill in?

Ah sorry I didn't mean they should call the whole shooting match Sky News at 7, or even use their name during the programme. I just meant they use should the graphics from their bulletins on Sky News (ie the bold brash presentation, the breaking news whoosh, the captions etc etc, just without the words 'Sky News' - a bit like Scottish TV or UTV take ITV1 presentation without the ITV1 logo, or like regional news programmes look similar to their national counterparts)

While I'm not up for everything looking the same, and I take the point on board about this being a separate service, it seems a bit daft to spend so much time creating far inferior presentation.

Of course, Five may have already said no to this, so perhaps that's out of Sky's control...

Indeed. The network have the final say on presentation and style.

Note that Five News actually refer to themselves as Five News in plain text, not five news as per the logo...

Although their own website is somewhat inconsistent on the matter, Five do call themselves Five not five in many official documents etc.