Also, let's be perfectly candid. The subtext of any Sky News pres-related gripes here is essentially: "The 2005 look had lots of brassy music, whooshing bumpers and multiple presenters on any one shift doing rather a lot of walking around, so can we have it back, please?"
And you know what? As an unabashed pres-nerd, I loved it, too! But with the tenure of John Ryley came the entirely-correct view that "content is king", and in a commercial environment, operating with that view in mind is a necessity.
That's certainly not my view and I don't think a few people on here are asking it to go back to 2005, which as you say was too brassy with wooshing bumpers and over the top graphics and sound. I completely agree with Ryley's strategy until 2015, but since 2015 there has been a gradual dumbing down of the channel in many respects.
Content was king until 2015 and an excellent channel Sky News was. However in the last 9 months we have basically seen Sky News going around trying to show off their office building at any chance, many great presenters leave, inadequate replacements and people being put in their place,
I really like Millbank and the old Sky News centre in Osterley? Why. Because I know, when news comes from there there will be no vanity shots going into breaks, nobody trying to show off how great their office is and no distractions in the background of people walking and moving, and it looks and feels like a news studio. The glass box is an office first and a Studio second. It's ironic you say that people prefer the 2005 look which was too much glam over practicality, since that is precisely what the glass box is.
I don't want Sky News of 2005 back, I want Sky News of 2014-2015 back when it was a First Class news channel with strong presenter line-up, much better coverage of business news, no gimmicky shots around the studio, much better sound and an environment that just screamed professional news channel, whereas now in the glass box it feels pretty much like a studio bolted on an office as an afterthought to make Sky look good.
And on the presenters. Nobody is saying that Sky shouldn't be bringing in young talent through and they were certainly not doing that much in the past. But there are ways and means of doing this. The second presenter in a duo, overnight, weekend daytimes etc are excellent times to do this to gain them experience and to develop themselves. However at the moment they need another one or two relief presenters because quite simply a lot of them are not in the stage of their career where they can anchor a major show and conduct major interviews on their own.
The difference on Kay Burley's slot when she is there and not is massive. In your prime time daytime slot, on what other channel do you see someone as experienced as Key replaced with someone as inexperienced as Kimberley who is a poor interviewer? Of course you draft someone in as relief, but when a major anchor is not on, the gap between them and their replacements is massive. I don't expect Kimberley to be on Kay's level, that would be silly, but despite your assertions that Ryley is a content over style man still, from my view in the last nine months he's abandoned that and become all about vanity and the glass box and showing it off at the expense of quality of the presenting team.
Sky News would be a better channel now if they didn't build the Glass Box and instead spent the money on keeping say Samantha and Lorna, two very versatile presenters who would provide good cover for the key bulletins whilst also giving the youth a chance still on the weekends/overnights/secondary presenter role.
I'm not against the glass box in total, but for me, if I had to choose between the box and the quality of presenters I'd choose presenters every time, since i believe that the basics are indeed more important than showing off, just like Ryley used to.
