Am I the only one finding this Live at Five fairly clumsy, and not at all fluid?
These rather bizzare segments that are cheesily linked to, "Now let's go Nationwide" and the presenter of 'Out There' reminded me worryingly of the travel presenter from The Day Today.
Jeremy Thompson may be a talented journalist, but I don't find him to be a very capable presenter, stumbling his way through an hour of far too much 'human interest', and his awful display of sitting dumbfounded whilst a stream of knowledge enters his earpiece was rather reminiscent of a presenter's first day on bid-up.
Sky News revamp sees modest ratings rise
Tara Conlan
Tuesday October 25, 2005
Sky News's relaunch yesterday saw a rise in ratings at breakfast time and in the early evening. However, despite the new streamlined look and new talent, BBC News 24 still beat Sky across the day, with little change in the gap between the two.
Compared with last Monday, Sky was up slightly yesterday. Last Monday, Sky News's reach was 1 million and its share was 0.56%.
Lets look at those Media Guardian figures again.
BBC News 24 still beat Sky across the day, with little change in the gap between the two.
Eamonn Holmes and Lorna Dunkley on Sunrise were 6,000 viewers up on their predecessor.
Sunrise averaged 48,000 viewers
At 7pm, The Sky Report with Julie Etchingham averaged 31,000 viewers.
James Rubin's World News Tonight - 49,000 viewers.
And sunrise managed 4000 more viewers. That's a £10,000 investment per viewer!
l'll say that again -
£10,000 per viewer!
You people can hark on about the look, and take your vid-caps, and compare caption sizes and format changes. But you're all singing the praises about a service that attracts fewer customers than a Tesco supermarket pulls in over an average weekend.
At £10,000 a pop, it would have been cheaper and more lucrative installing a BARCO, mini-dish and digibox at all three thousand Tesco stores up and down the country.
The simple question is, commercially, has Sky News secured an advantage over its rivals with this 40 million pound investment?
Has it made a dent in increasing viewership?
Is it more appealing to advertisers?
I say no to all three, but I do see one twisted advantage.
Sky News becomes more attractive when Channel 4 or ITV open to tender. But do you really think Nick Pollard was thinking about that? Honestly?
Finally, to the mugs that have been sold this appointment to view television nonsense. Can I remind you that Pollard canned all the back-half hours at Sky News in 2001 in favour of that ridiculous rip-and-read news service.
Technofile... Book Review... Anyone???
Sky News then became first with the news... as long as it was filed on the press association or reuters wire service! And became known in the industry as 'Sky News - never wrong for long' - for always having to retract wire service mistakes on air.
Pollard has managed to re-invent the wheel! Lets all take vid-caps and compare notes before James Murdoch and the board sack him.
Jesus.
Am I the only one finding this Live at Five fairly clumsy, and not at all fluid?
These rather bizzare segments that are cheesily linked to, "Now let's go Nationwide" and the presenter of 'Out There' reminded me worryingly of the travel presenter from The Day Today.
Jeremy Thompson may be a talented journalist, but I don't find him to be a very capable presenter, stumbling his way through an hour of far too much 'human interest', and his awful display of sitting dumbfounded whilst a stream of knowledge enters his earpiece was rather reminiscent of a presenter's first day on bid-up.
Agreed it's got me frustrated too.... I'm now back to News24
the ratings - a bit more detail than in the article above.
The Media Guardian article doesn't say what the comparisons are to - up x% on what exactly? Monday against Sunday, or Friday, or Monday last week, or the year-to-date, or what? The percentage increases and the overall tone above have a very Sky spin on them.
A detailed breakdown of the quarter hour ratings came my way (don't ask!), and overall, they probably don't make happy reading for Sky, given the effort and buildup to the relaunch.
0600 - 0900 was very healthy for Sky. News24 didn't get above 4,000 - but that's the BBC1/N24 simulcasting problem (and even without that, Sky would have led). Sky carried on doing well between 0900 - 1200, but News24 gradually closed the gap, to be very close behind in the 1100 - 1200 hour (and edging ahead at times). From 1200 - 1330 News 24 was very comfortably ahead. During the afternoon the two traded blows. At 1600 News 24 shot about 70% ahead of Sky - a big turn on then. At 1700 News24 thrashed Sky - audiences in the low 100,000s with Sky in the 40,000s. News24 won emphatically at 1800, and thrashed the Sky Report at 1900 by even more that at 1700 - something like 110,000 vs 31,000. 2000 wasn't so bad for Sky - something like 60,000 vs 80,000 for News24 at the start, and towards the end of the hour Sky got close. 24 pulled ahead from 2100 onwards and generally stayed ahead - with not such huge amounts in it, and with Sky occasionally ahead - until 0200, when the ratings end. Late in the evening the channels were in the 20-45,000 range for both.
Overall News24 was ahead on the day by the amounts in the Guardian article. In "prime time" (1900 - 0200 in these ratings terms), News 24 was thumpingly ahead, although I can't recall the exact amount.
The usual health warning - these ratings aren't the most accurate because of the low numbers involved, and it's only one day. But the trends are interesting. Sky so far hasn't attracted new viewers. In the programming that's close to the "old" Sky, (morning, afternoon, late evening), they did about as well as usual. Sunrise seems to be up a bit. But the areas where they've invested the big money - the Burley, Thompson, Etchingham and Rubin shows - people seem to have actively turned off.
More caveats. No big breaking news yesterday. A lot of viewers prefer familiarity. And Sky say they're trying to build a new audience for the channel - and that can't be expected to appear on day 1. They'll have to build it over time.
All that being said, I bet there were more smiling faces when the ratings came out at TV Centre than in Osterley.....
All that being said, I bet there were more smiling faces when the ratings came out at TV Centre than in Osterley.....
I can tell you for a fact, when they came out this morning, the senior managers and director of programmes where I work burst into uncontrollable laughter, pointing out various times during the day to each other, and finding it impossible to breath and laugh at the same time.
The company wide email followed, so everybody could share.
The figures are shocking.
Can you judge too much concidering these new shows weren't promoted ahead of time much at all? I'm not sure the average viewer would be fully aware of the new programmes, when the first time many were advertised was yesterday morning. How do you expect massive amounts of viewers to watch the Sky Report if you dont tell them about it?
My first impressions (although I think it's still WAY too early to make sweeping statements about trends, audience figures etc.)
Presentationally- it's beautiful....a triumph over ITV NC and News 24. The studio is magnificent and I like the straps for once on Sky.
Exception- the weather. Sky have never had decent weather graphics and this is no exception...confusing and animated for the sake of it.
The content is what I find a little surprising. I'll admit I hadn't watched the old Sunrise for a long time, but when I tuned in this morning (without being interested as much in the studio as yesterday) I was utterly bored. You can eat your entire breakfast without having a clue what's going on in the world (admittedly not that much worse than BBC Breakfast).
But there does seem to be a sense of "dumbing down" across the schedule- lots of time explaining the headlines, or how you can contact them, or what's coming up without actually giving too much news.
I think that's fairly surprising and something I think they'll be forced to change pretty soon if this approach doesn't improve ratings significantly.
Interesting now that Sky have finally grasped the nettle of 16:9 broadcasting and automated playout systems. They now have to go through the pain of getting these things to work. The problems News24 has been wrestling with since 1998 and has more or less got sorted now. Problems like wrong shape pictures, wrong astons, black clips, badly cut clips, pictures out of cut off, wrong graphics on wall etc.
Plus the problems with the radio mics. News24 had these for about a day after the relaunch before abandoning the idea.
Can you judge too much concidering these new shows weren't promoted ahead of time much at all? I'm not sure the average viewer would be fully aware of the new programmes, when the first time many were advertised was yesterday morning. How do you expect massive amounts of viewers to watch the Sky Report if you dont tell them about it?
indeed, but 110,000 for News24 against Sky's 31,000 at 7pm doesn't look too clever. Very early days though.
To be fair to Sky, there was not huge publicity for the relaunch in the buildup to it, even though many on here thought that there would be promos etc. in the week before (I had a feeling that there wouldn't be, and I was right). Any people who do not grace places like this on the internet would have tuned in on Monday, and that would probably have been the first that they would have seen or heard anything of a new look. So it was perhaps to be expected that there would be relatively unchanged ratings for some parts of the schedule simular to the old, and a drop-off in ratings for those that have changed ie. The Sky Report, World News Tonight.
I think it will be a month or so before any anaylsis of the ratings is meaningful, and if it continues to bomb, you would think that they would have a "Plan B" to change back some things like parts of the schedule and presentation to something more familiar.
You do the maths...
Tuesday October 25, 2005
Monkey bets his winter store of bananas on one of the papers tomorrow doing a calculation on how much per viewer Eamonn Holmes has cost Sky News. His new show with Lorna Dunkley has added 6,000 viewers to the usual breakfast audience. The sound of calculators clicking furiously over at the Daily Mail can be heard from here...
To be fair to Sky, there was not huge publicity for the relaunch
Have you been on the moon?! Are you being serious? ( I feel like John McEnroe) Are you REALLY being SERIOUS?!
The FRONT PAGE of the latest Sky Magazine, a FULL PAGE in Sunday's News of the World - most of yesterday's Media Guardian...
More?
Sky's new dawn
The Sun - 24/10/2005
Blair first guest on Sky's new show
The Independent - 24/10/2005
'Two anchors sitting at a desk isn't the only way of doing it': Innovation is the key to being the UK's leading news channel, says the head of Sky News
The Guardian - 24/10/2005
Eamonn Holmes: Man of the People: Eamonn joins Sunrise
People - 23/10/2005 (199 words)
Sky News unveils new studios and beefed up schedule
The Guardian - 21/10/2005
News girl Grainne hopes to headline awards
Mirror - 20/10/2005
Media: From flack to hack: As the suave spokesman for Clinton's state department his job was to answer tricky questions. From next week James Rubin will be asking them as the host of a world news show on Sky News
The Guardian - 17/10/2005
THE INTERVIEW: EAMONN HOLMES - Set to rise and shine
The Independent - 17/10/2005
NO publicity you say about the relaunch? You must be mad