Sky News presentation - new newswall

Well done for missing the important part of that point. If you've heard the BBC radio promo, then you'll know what I mean.

We've already ascertained that this is a humorous promo and not part of their coverage. It isn't claiming to be anything else.

So the problem is simply that you find it irritating? Now we're getting somewhere.

I would rather have a humorous promo that displeases you than a purely informational one that tells me nothing that I can't ascertain from the fact the Scottish Referendum is an important event and is therefore newsworthy.

Sounds promising... Graphics/studios following the recent rota changes. Who knows?

*whistles*

I presume this is to coincide with the General Election when Sky generally have a relaunch. I always find it strange to see Sky relaunching around election time when glitches can occur and the presentation can be disjointed due to the changes. It generally takes a couple of months to bed in majore changes and would rather see Sky relaunch earlier in the year.

Big ass whoop. I've heard and seen thousands of promos, and written some myself. A promo is there to do a job, and if it does it well, it barely gets talked about. The ones that don't do it well, such as these promos from Sky News, are the ones that get talked about.



A humourous promo that does nothing to sell the coverage, and presents the image that Sky News are not taking the story entirely seriously. What part of that do you not get? I do radio, and one consultant who deals with commercials, Dan O'Day, advises stations to avoid going for comedy or humourous stuff in commercials, as to often, they'll do the comedy first, and then try to slip the sales message in under your radar, whilst your laughing at the joke, hopefully.

It's similar here in this Sky News promo. The 'humourous' part is the dreadful autotuned 'performances', such as Alex Salmond's "I Want To Break Free". Then at the end, the sales message comes up on screen, telling us about the live results coverage on Sky News. But it comes up too late, and the opportunity is lost, cos either you're laughing at the sillyness of Alex Salmond 'singing', or you're irritated, by the annoying electronicness that the autotune introduces into the soundtrack.



It's not just that it's irritating, especially the electronicness autotuning introduces into the soundtrack, but also, that it presents a very negative image of Sky News, in that it suggests that they're not taking the story seriously enough. Now, anyone who has been watching the coverage on Sky News will probably know that's not the case, but none the less, a promo that doesn't sell the coverage, is a promo that isn't doing it's job. It's really that simple.



So you would rather have a promo that doesn't sell the coverage, rather than one that does? That's not a good thing in broadcasting circles, not really.

As I'm sure has been mentioned on this forum before, radio and TV are not the same thing, and they're not directly comparable in every way.

On the radio laughing obscures the audio; the entire medium. On TV, laughing obscures the audio too, but there's the vision to compensate. Why do you think there are so many comedy adverts on TV?



Well, isn't it funny that nobody from either the Yes or No camp has mentioned this promo once? Not that your opinion on the matter seems to hold water - the John Lewis ad that's been happening every Christmas must have been a failure. A promo getting talked about simply means it's noteworthy for whatever reason.

An informational promo won't get talked about much, which is fine for a promo for something where you might not know the date a particular programme begins. However, such a promo begins to state the obvious when it's saying a news channel will be covering a major political event, and is hardly going to attract much of an untapped audience.

All this boils down to you seeming to think that other people will deduce that a humorous promo will mean poor coverage (which I think isn't a leap many would make), and your dislike of Autotune.

Not sure I agree with that. Promos are there to promote. I'd say that a promo that get's talked about is a good promo.

Regardless of what your brand is, you want people talking about it and engaging with it. A "boring" promo that nobody talks about isn't going to suffice.

They are far more similar than you think, they work on a lot of similar rules, and the vision element doesn't make that much of a difference. I know you find that impossible to belive but it is true. If Radio and TV weren't substantially similar, how come so many radio programmes, be they quizzes, comedies or dramas, have transfered from radio to TV over the years?



The same reason why there are so many on the radio, advertising executives think comedy sells better. Now, when it works, it works brilliantly. When it doesn't work, it falls completely flat. There's very little in-between when it comes to this. The adverts that work best, both TV and radio, have the sales message, and the comedy, integrated into each other. For instance, the classic Carling Black Label adverts of the late 70s, 1980's and into the 1990s, they worked so well, because in many ways, the sales message was the set up to the punchline of the joke. The sales message, set up the pay-off.

The original Go-Compare ad, by comparison, was a truly bad example of using comedy in advertising. Why? Because the sales message came first, in the form of the tenor singing the jingle, and the comedy followed on. "How much do you think they're paying him?"/"He's only a tenor!". They weren't integrated, they didn't really connect with each other at all.

Now, take the Sky News promo. The humour, is in the editing and autotuning to make these politicians, sing these songs. But the message, to watch Sky News for the coverage of the referendum result, only comes on screen at the end. They don't really connect with each other in any meaningful way.



No, they got bigger things to worry about, like actally persuading people to vote their way. They'll probably be aware of it, but at this point in the proceedings, they've got bigger fish to fry.



Yes, and that will not be because it is doing it's job. It will be because it will be doing something to deliberately get talked about, such as the autotuning. And usually, that extra something that gets it talked about,also means it isn't doing its job properly.



That's not something you're gonna be able to do with a news channel very often. I think you'll find the audience for the story is pretty fixed now. Scottish viewers are obviously the most interested, followed by viewers in Wales and Northern Ireland, where there is already some form of devolution, then there's viewers in areas like Cornwall, Yorkshire and the North East, where there are already some interest in regional devolution from Westminster, which is an issue that is already cropping up as a future talking point, no matter what the outcome of the Scottish Referendum. Add to that, those who have a general interest in Politics anyway. and I think that pretty much covers your audience. I don't see there being a massive untapped audience for this particular story.



Humour and serious news, don't go together too well. You don't see a lot of huourous coverage of major news stories, on the news programmes themselves. So, it's not that big a leap. Of course, if you're not that interested in news generally, then something like this is differet and grabs your attention, so you would probably like it. But, as a person that is into news, and seriously so, I find this to be a needless distraction, a waste of time and effort, and demeaning of a topic that could change the UK in a very major way.

And you talk about my dislike of autotune, and yes, I dislike it immensely, but I happen to know a number of people in music and sound engineering, and nobody I know has a good word to say about it. It's been overused already in too many songs and albums, in the same way that the zoom lens was overused in film and TV in the 1970s, because it was new and different and something to play around with. Unfrotunately, the end result of autotuning is usually a degrade in the quality of the sound, and the adding of a slight electronic effect to the vocal.

And to be honest, this particular use of autotune was grievous in the extreme, and really has no place on what is supposed to be a serious news channel.

Nope, not at all. To promote a programme, is virtually the same as selling a product. The only result of an advertisement that matters is that somebody buys the product, or pays for the service. Anything else is irrelevant. It's exactly the same with a promo. The only result that matters, is that people watch. Anything else is irrelevant.



The only engagement that matters, is the one that shows up in the BARB viewing figures. In other words, the engagement that matters is that you watch the programme. That's it. Nothing else matters. Some consider other forms of engagement a bonus, others disagree. I'm firmly in the latter camp.

Election Night coverage has always had an element of humour to it, there's a rich tradition of the likes of Richard Stilgoe, Mike Yarward and Rory Bremner doing a turn during the election programme.



A "person that is into news" will know it's happening and that Sky are covering it. You're not the target audience, so with due respect, I don't think your opinion of how successful the promo is can be particularly valid.

This promo is the one that is intended to entice people who aren't particularly interested in politics to watch. I'm sure there are other promos or marketing material going out (perhaps in different places) to tell people like yourself why they should watch Sky rather than the BBC or ITV/STV.

Sky are at a big disadvantage over the BBC and ITV/STV in not being regionalised. In the event of a Yes vote they've got two very different stories to try and tell to different audiences at the same time. It may be that they've realised that most in Scotland will choose either BBC Scotland or STV, so they're going to be going for a different style of coverage to appeal to those with a more casual interest?

1997 called. They want their marketing plan back.

What I think you've overlooked is that other forms of engagement, by which I assume you mean social media, are the modern equivalent of word of mouth advertising, and that is how you get the BARB viewers. People talk about it online, that gets their friends interested and they watch the programme.

So to rundown the last few posts. Cityprod once again shows his old school way of thinking which doesn't transfer to modern ways of engaging with viewers.

From what I've seen on social media, the trailer has been shared. Job done, that is all.