I was thinking about this on the train today. Take The Sky Report and put it on Sky One (or Three), give it some serious content for a change. Maybe even put WNT on there too, and put Sky News back to what it should be.
Advantages:
1) gives Sky general channels some meaty content for a change.
2) The programmes actually aren't bad, but they should not have changed a rolling news channel to incorporate them.
3) Cross promotion of Sky News personalities on another Sky channel.
Disadvantages:
1) Pollard might still have to do a snivelling climbdown. No wait - that' s an advantage too.
But look at Live at 5- it's clearly been designed to "work" on Sky Three. I can't understand the reason for it's existence if not for Sky Three.
For many years I've read on here how great Jeremy Thompson is- comments relating to his journalistic brilliance and calm presentation style.
I'm sorry, but Live at Five makes him look like a numpty. And even if I didn't agree with all the praise heaped on him before, I don't think it's entirely his fault. His show has been dumbed down (and I truly hate to use that cliche) to try and work as a news roundup on a general entertainment channel- it's Sky's attempt to ape the BBC's 6 (which most people will realise is way dumbed down from News 24).
The more you look at the new Sky News, the more you realise the likely thought processes involved in producing the schedule.
i.e. not a lot of thought, and with one key driver- audiences. Three examples.
1) They look at GMTV- they like the audience figures so they recruit Eamon and dumb down Sunrise a bit more.
2) They look at the success of Sky Sports News (which thrashes Sky News in ratings at a fraction of the cost) and so add in an extra Sportsline and encourage more "chat" when sports presenters are on air.
3) They look at the ratings achieved by the 6- an early evening, low intelligence roundup on an entertainment channel- and so alter Live at 5 to work on both Sky News and Three.
So you see, I really don't think the relaunch has been as well thought through (or audience matched) as some around here would hope. If Rubin had been screen tested, he wouldn't have got his own show, so I can only assume he was recruited on the basis of who he is. That shows incredible naiveity on the part of the channel controller.
I predicted before relaunch that ATV programmes would be history within 12 months. I stand by that, with the addition that Pollard will be history too.
It's all very well praising the man for past successes and knowledge of the industry. But let's not forget that he's presided the years in which Sky has gone from market leader to second place. He was seemingly given free-reign and a hell of a lot of money to change Sky News with the sole intention of gaining audience share.
Spending £20m and LOSING viewers takes quite a lot of skill.
This really needs reiterating- Sky could currently have an extra £20m in the bank, lower operating costs and have a HIGHER audience if they hadn't relaunched.
If the audience share remains as it is in the new year, the relaunch would have been a monumental f*ck-up and whatever cat says about experience and the past, I just can't see how Pollard could stay.
I'm sorry but that's bullsh!t- try getting caught in an explosion before making grandiose statements about how noble you would be..
Erm, sorry, she is a reporter. Her job is to report the news. She works for an international news organisation.
Do you not think, therefore, that she might've phoned up and mentioned that a bloody great bomb had gone off in her hotel relatively swiftly (given this is her job, and she is on standby 24/7/365) after the event, rather than not getting on air for about half an hour after the event.
It's not noble, it's what she's employed to do. If I were a BBC News hack, and knew I had a reporter available there and then who witnessed the incident I'd rather expect them to tell me about it ASAP, not in half an hour's time when Reuters have already done it for me.
If she didn't have the technology to do so, fair enough, but I imagine she carries a phone with her everywhere. She is an excellent reporter generally, from what I have seen of her in Iraq, but it does rather bring into question the system of production at the BBC when they have a correspondent witnessing an event and yet still rely on a wire service to report it.
It's impossible to come up with such a simple assessment as you've made without knowledge of the facts. I don't know them all, but I can add that you could hear the police/security over the phone-line in her interview telling all around to move back.
This kind of suggests that she was ringing during or just after the evacuation. I would expect no less from any journalist but to attempt to make contact before leaving the building is beyond idiocy. I don't need to insult your intelligence by mentioning things like the World Trade Centre- the priority has to be to get out, get safe, then contact the newsdesk.
Whatever you may think, I can't see any journalist (BBC, Sky, ITN or other) doing it any other way- unless they are an absolute idiot (and they don't tend to make decent journos anyway).
I'm sorry but that's bullsh!t- try getting caught in an explosion before making grandiose statements about how noble you would be..
Erm, sorry, she is a reporter. Her job is to report the news. She works for an international news organisation.
Do you not think, therefore, that she might've phoned up and mentioned that a bloody great bomb had gone off in her hotel relatively swiftly (given this is her job, and she is on standby 24/7/365) after the event, rather than not getting on air for about half an hour after the event.
It's not noble, it's what she's employed to do. If I were a BBC News hack, and knew I had a reporter available there and then who witnessed the incident I'd rather expect them to tell me about it ASAP, not in half an hour's time when Reuters have already done it for me.
If she didn't have the technology to do so, fair enough, but I imagine she carries a phone with her everywhere. She is an excellent reporter generally, from what I have seen of her in Iraq, but it does rather bring into question the system of production at the BBC when they have a correspondent witnessing an event and yet still rely on a wire service to report it.
I've just been talking to someone who knows. Caroline Hawley was on leave (from Baghdad!). She was in one of the public areas of the hotel, and her mobile was (and probably still is) in her room. You can't humanely have a go at her for pulling herself together, checking the people she was with were fine, then trying to find out a little of what happened before finding someone else's phone and filing. And it has to be said that if you were at the scene of one of these explosions you couldn't automatically assume it was a bomb (albeit easily the most likely). There doesn't seem to have been too much structural damage to the hotels, and I believe there were some reports of a "gas explosion".
Caroline though - poor thing - Lord only knows how her nerves are. She is a very brave lady.
Interestingly, yesterday was (I think) the first day since the relaunch when Sky was ahead on both the whole day ratings (0600 - 0200, don't forget the "Breakfast" effect on News24's ratings) AND in primetime (1800 - 0200). Only just, but ahead. Today's ratings will be more interesting..... the biggest news day since the Sky relaunch. Having watched quite a lot of both today, neither was dominant in terms of quality - both had good and bad points. The one ratings snag is that News24 was on BBC2 for the Blair defeat, so its numbers will take a hammering for that period. But they'll be worth looking at!
I'm sorry but that's bullsh!t- try getting caught in an explosion before making grandiose statements about how noble you would be..
Erm, sorry, she is a reporter. Her job is to report the news. She works for an international news organisation.
Do you not think, therefore, that she might've phoned up and mentioned that a bloody great bomb had gone off in her hotel relatively swiftly (given this is her job, and she is on standby 24/7/365) after the event, rather than not getting on air for about half an hour after the event.
It's not noble, it's what she's employed to do. If I were a BBC News hack, and knew I had a reporter available there and then who witnessed the incident I'd rather expect them to tell me about it ASAP, not in half an hour's time when Reuters have already done it for me.
If she didn't have the technology to do so, fair enough, but I imagine she carries a phone with her everywhere. She is an excellent reporter generally, from what I have seen of her in Iraq, but it does rather bring into question the system of production at the BBC when they have a correspondent witnessing an event and yet still rely on a wire service to report it.
I've just been talking to someone who knows. Caroline Hawley was on leave (from Baghdad!). She was in one of the public areas of the hotel, and her mobile was (and probably still is) in her room. You can't humanely have a go at her for pulling herself together, checking the people she was with were fine, then trying to find out a little of what happened before finding someone else's phone and filing. And it has to be said that if you were at the scene of one of these explosions you couldn't automatically assume it was a bomb (albeit easily the most likely). There doesn't seem to have been too much structural damage to the hotels, and I believe there were some reports of a "gas explosion".
Caroline though - poor thing - Lord only knows how her nerves are. She is a very brave lady.
Interestingly, yesterday was (I think) the first day since the relaunch when Sky was ahead on both the whole day ratings (0600 - 0200, don't forget the "Breakfast" effect on News24's ratings) AND in primetime (1800 - 0200). Only just, but ahead. Today's ratings will be more interesting..... the biggest news day since the Sky relaunch. Having watched quite a lot of both today, neither was dominant in terms of quality - both had good and bad points. The one ratings snag is that News24 was on BBC2 for the Blair defeat, so its numbers will take a hammering for that period. But they'll be worth looking at!
I'm not 'having a go' at her directly, simply making a comment that it's surprising that given the BBC had a reporter on the scene that they were beaten to the story.
If Sky wins primetime tonight it will be nothing short of miraculous. I can't see an interview with an Uzbek official really doing it for the British public - though Uzbekistan has been a very interesting place for some time now.
Cat, you're disappearing further into Wonderland...
Quote:
it's surprising that given the BBC had a reporter on the scene that they were beaten to the story
As others have said; Caroline's mobile was left in her room (in the hotel that was bombed) and anyway...
BBC News 24 had one of their star reporters LIVE from the scene
BBC News 24 had another (Jon Leyne) on the streets of Amman
BBC News 24 have also their reporters LIVE in vision
BBC News 24 have had Jonathan Beale LIVE from Washington with US reaction to the attacks
BBC News 24 were first with the LATEST PICTURES
BBC News 24 have had the British Ambassador on LIVE
BBC News 24 have had various Middle East experts LIVE in the studio.
versus...
Sky News who had an eyewitness on the phone more than 90 minutes after the first explosion and Emma Hurd live in, er - Jerusalem.
Please can you expand on what you mean when you say that BBC News 24 were beaten to the story?
Actually, don't bother - I'm not going to read it anyway.
Cat, you're disappearing further into Wonderland...
Go back to Hello! Magazineland luv x x
Now that's a bit unfair (writes someone generally on the opposite side of the debate from Cat). Look back through the thread and Cat criticises Sky's showbizzier elements.
I probably don't need to offer a defence though - no doubt the tail is up and flicking, and the teeth will soon be bared.......
I've been keeping away from the Rubin mudsling around here, as I believe he should be given time to settle in and make the WNT his own. However in the back of my mind I knew there would be at some time an impending train hurtling towards the end of the tracks - and that happened last night.
Sorry, but a decision should have been made last night that James double headed the show with Chris Roberts rather than leave Chris to do inserts from the standing-up podium., and let James do battle with a major breaking story.
He appeared on screen to do a very good impression of the cast of Watership Down visiting a Car Headlight testing factory.
Do you think it's time for some promo's on other channels - such as the terrestrial ones? Especially for Sunrise!
Havn't you seen the Sky News adverts on Sky One?
No, I don't watch much Sky One to be honest, but I have never seen a promo on any of the channels that I watch other than Sky News itself. Maybe I have just missed the promo's - I don't know.
The point I was trying to make (badly) was that if you spend serious amounts of money on someone like Eamonn then you need to tell people about it. We have a TV in our coffee area here, and if Sunrise is on everybody who walks in and sees Eamonn all have said "What's he doing on there?" Not one person knew he was presenting on Sunrise now. They need to do promos for Sunrise on the terrestrial channels if they haven't already done so. That way it may build up a following.
BBC News 24 had one of their star reporters LIVE from the scene