Why would they want to do this with Birmingham as they don't have Tony Blair or important people living there. It might be one of Britain's biggest cities but there's not much interesting things over there. I supose London was targeted cause TB, Govement and the Royals live there
We don't know if Birmingham WAS targeted at all. It's quite possible it was a false alarm. Or maybe someone just decided Birmingham should be evacuated not because of a bomb threat but because... well, because it's
Birmingham
, for ****'s sake.
Birmingham
was
a false alarm - expect a lot of these in the next few months.
Why would they want to do this with Birmingham as they don't have Tony Blair or important people living there. It might be one of Britain's biggest cities but there's not much interesting things over there. I supose London was targeted cause TB, Govement and the Royals live there
We don't know if Birmingham WAS targeted at all. It's quite possible it was a false alarm. Or maybe someone just decided Birmingham should be evacuated not because of a bomb threat but because... well, because it's
Birmingham
, for ****'s sake.
Birmingham
was
a false alarm - expect a lot of these in the next few months.
There is something they arent telling us.....belive me
Commercial incentive? That does not follow logically with Sky dropping advertising for about 24 hours.
Of course it does - when a big story breaks, there's a much greater opportunity to bring in viewers, and dropping ad breaks helps that. Then when it comes to selling air time for ads for future periods, they have much greater average viewing figures and much higher peaks, and so can sell for more cash. If you think Sky do this kind of thing because they're nice cuddly blokes who just want to do the best thing for the country, then I think you're being unrealistically naive.
I think you've just demonstrated that you don't really understand 24 hour news channel audiences.
Sky has a fairly standard audience base, which is not particularly large, but is particularly loyal; as with News 24. When a big story breaks then many, many non-regular viewers quickly tune in for an hour or so, and quickly tune out again.
By the time Sky had returned to advertising, their audience figures would have been almost entirely back to normal, and increasing prices for slots would not have been remotely logical.
They drop adverts to provide the best coverage - they are a news channel, and Sky News (or any news channel) has never been about making money, they are not an effective sales ground at all. They lose millions a year, and broadcasters only keep them on for prestige purposes.
If Sky's audiences stuck around for very long periods after major news events then their average audience figures would be a great deal higher than they are now.
I think you've just demonstrated that you don't really understand 24 hour news channel audiences.
No, I think you've misunderstood how ads are sold on 24hr networks.
cat posted:
By the time Sky had returned to advertising, their audience figures would have been almost entirely back to normal, and increasing prices for slots would not have been remotely logical.
They drop adverts to provide the best coverage - they are a news channel, and Sky News (or any news channel) has never been about making money, they are not an effective sales ground at all. They lose millions a year, and broadcasters only keep them on for prestige purposes.
Of course the increases in price are illogical, nobody's questioning that. But they exist - which is why Sky's press office is forever pumping out releases about their figures during these times, when ads are dropped. Prices chargeable for airtime are directly related to peak and average viewing figures. A breaking story has the potential to boost these, which makes a difference to the raw figures. The difference makes no sense in real terms, but if you're negotiating for airtime, you look at raw figures for a comparison with other channels. Only a pitifully low proportion of people buying airtime will ask for the ratings on a 'normal' day, which will be much lower than the peaks, and even lower than the averages.
Buying airtime on a rolling news channel is not quite the same process as buying it on a traditional network - there's much more flexibility for the network as to when the ads are shown, and it's highly unusual for a particular 'slot' to be sold, rather advertisers tend to buy an amount of 'airtime' to be played out (within some restrictions) whenever. That's why Sky can drop adverts - they don't 'lose' (much) money from it, as they can still make up for (most of) the lost airtime through the given period for which the airtime has been bought. And that also explains why averages and peaks are so important for news networks, where ratings on individual days and for individual time slots are much more important on the traditional networks. And shows why they want to increase these figures by providing better coverage using techniques such as - however illogical it might appear - cutting ads.
I'm not suggesting that Sky News is out to make money - but the more money they have coming in to cover their losses, the more they can invest on producing better programmes, and thus the more viewers they get. Eventually, it might even end in profit, as it almost has in the past.
On a related note, it will be interesting to see if the same advertising policy applies when they bring in their feature programming, as I'd have thought there'd be some advertisers only wanting to advertise during slots that appeal to their particular target audience.
Perhaps the name of the person was released by UCL before it officially should have been.
UCL released a statement saying they believed she had died. The lady's family were annoyed because they are still clinging to the hope that she may be alive. All references to her name have been removed at the family's request.