Sky News: Presentation Discussion

Presumably the presenters won't be "doing the weather" in the current form - stood in front of graphics - but will just read over full-frame stuff ?

AIUI Francis had the contract for supplying the data and graphics as a service to sky as well didn't he?

Do Five still have weather presenters? And is Isobel Lang (former BBC weather presenter - and definitely one of the best Sky have with a proper Met Forecasting background I believe) still with Sky?

Five uses Sky weather presenters, such as Lucy and Isobel, who is still at Sky.

I doubt we will see JT and the like standing up and doing the weather the traditional way. The article says "headline forecasts", so I guess it'll be more like Sky News Australia do (see this YouTube video).

As somebody else said, in reference to the loss of dedicated sports presenters; was the move to HD worth it if it means all these cut backs in other areas?!

Sky's focus at the minute needs to be content, yet it appears to be content that is being neglected in favour of "presentation". This is a presentation forum BUT we still know that, while appearance is important, content is the key.

The move to HD is always a when not if though - it had to come at some time.

HD is going to be the new SD soon, just as 16:9 became the new 4:3...

Charlotte is presenting Five News tonight

True, but is HD for a news channel really a priority when most of the footage from the field is still in SD? For example, ITV News only went 16:9 a year or so ago.

Why can't they just have one weather presenter come in and make a two minute forecast and then just repeat that all day. I thought that's what Sky did already.

It was actaully December 2007! so slightly more than a year!

Good for her, think its fair to say she is highly thought of at Sky.

I would say that more thn 50% of non studio stuff has been in HD.

Disagree. That will not happen soon at all. If it does became the "norm" then I'm not convinced it will happen for several years. You only have to take one look at the figures for BBC HD / ITV HD / Sky1 HD to see that HD is still very much in its infancy and not that popular a technology yet. Sky News HD for example probably has no more than about 8,000 viewers on HD at any one time, if that, and roughly 9 times that amount watching on SD. Now obviously you could argue that that is only natural because a lot of homes can't receive the HD equivalents, but actually there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest that even in homes where HD is available, it is not always the first choice.

Anyway, very very disappointed to hear that the cutbacks are now affecting weather as well. Francis Wilson is arguably the best forecaster on television (very close between him and Rob M on the BBC) and deserves better treatment than this after all his years at Sky.

At least they are keeping the live forecasters on Sunrise which is something, and suggests they are serious about maintaining the quality of the breakfast programme. It is also the time of day in which people are most interested in what the weather has in store for them so it makes sense.

By the way, what's happened to Colin Brazier? I noticed he hasn't been presenting The Live Desk these past few weeks but popped up randomly last Friday. Everything's OK, right?