Sky News: Presentation Discussion

When they were doing the by-election result and reading out the numbers, they struggled to work those graphics too, they showed all of the numbers of votes on a panel on the left of the live footage like in a split screen way as they came out, but the Labour figure didn't appear for a good 10 minutes after it was read out.

I know it's a graveyard shift, but it just lacks consistency and as we saw just over a weeek ago when there was breaking news overnight they really struggled and if something major happened overnight you can imagine there being all sorts of presentation problems.

It's unlikely to happen yes, but the people staffing the gallery should know how to work things.

Watching Bolton and Co today, it seemed rather odd that Jayne Secker interviewed Lucy Cotter via one of the wall screens when she was actually in the studio with her, why didn't they just do it face to face?

For further evaluation:
http://skynews.skypressoffice.co.uk/press-releases/2013-05

New Papers promo airing, funky fast paced music with fast cut pictures of guests 'debating' and various expressions on Anna's face, only peep out of her is her laughing near the end.

More great overnight work by the graphics team.

Just saw a split screen (surprised they could use that) with just the Red Live graphic with no location detail on the left or right side, no location identifier at the top right and absolutely no straps. Really bizarre looking to see a split screen with nothing filled in and so much space.

We've now gone to Jon Craig talking about the Gay Marriage vote with a heading "Gary Marriage Vote" and Jon Craig's name on the strap which vanished after five seconds. It seems no straps other than for names of people are being used at all for any story

We then go to Charlie Thomas talking about Jose Mourinho and this feature gets no graphics whatsoever not even a headline or a name check for Charlie Thomas. Then we're back to Oaklahma an Paula breaking news and she breaks news without any graphics,, straps etc then back to Charlie doing sports round-up completely graphic-less, weird to report on rugby match results without putting up any actual scores.

Surely it's about time the overnight crew could use the system properly like the day crew? It's noticeable how graphics are rarely used overnight and when they are they are often not used properly..

Why is everybody assuming it's "the night crew" not being able to use the system?

IMHO it's much more likely they run the overnights with fewer staff, and overnight graphics are being run by the automation rather than a dedicated operator who can check things before they're displayed, and fix things in a hurry. If they're being run by the automation, they will only have the options that are programmed into the system, as opposed to an operator who can build new things on the fly (or get other staff in the building to build them into VizRT for them to use), choose more appropriate graphics and generally tweak and edit them to be better for the particular use.

If it's really upsetting you, write to Sky and express your displeasure that they're not utilising things effectively, but can we please lay off on blaming the staff who are probably doing the best they can with what they have to work with. (Note - there's no problem posting on here "graphics went a bit odd then", although you should either post a grab or expect "NE CAPS?" as a reply - it's the constant staff bashing that gets on my wick)

Here's the culprit:


Next time the deli counter is closed at Tesco I'll blame the night staff for not knowing how to slice meat.

And you do realise that the quality improves at 3am when World News starts, as it is a separate team I believe, and stations across the world usually take half an hour of WN. So really you are describing problems that occur within 2 hours, as CBS is on twice, two hours that are basically a skeleton repeat of News at Nine, Ten and Eleven, minus lives of course.

I was just thinking how well they are doing tonight.

There have been a few errors such as putting a template split screen graphic up for a few seconds but on the whole they have managed to work the straps well.

None have been cut off at the end, None have only been on 1 line either and lots of quick name straps during this press conference, Wonder if they brought in some staff early to cover the events in Oklahoma

It dramatically improved from about 1.30am onwards when breaking news headers and straps started to appear and things were much more like daytime which suggested someone else must have come in.

Prior to that it was weird to see when they were showing the coverage but without breaking news graphics anywhere, just a standard Oklahoma Tornado style header and only staps being names. They did go live to Jon Craig at one point though, if the graphics were on auto that would explain why his was totally empty.

I agree it may be skeleton overnight staff, but there should be someone there who is trained to use the graphics incase a major event kicks off and they are required since normally Sky News is basically graphicless for that midnight strand apart from names.

I see my request was noted...



You know what, just carry on, can't be bothered talking to idiots anymore.