Sky News presentation - New studio onwards

You're forgetting digital and mobile platforms, plus international audiences where the numbers are yuuuuuuuge, especially in the Middle East and Africa. My former boss was Jeremy Thompson's lead producer on Mandela's funeral and returned astonished that JT couldn't walk down the street without being mobbed by adoring fans.


Also, please don't call it "forum-bashing" just because someone's posted something with which you happen to disagree. That, if anything, is Trump-esque.

I know Sky News is popular in South Africa. I remember Eamonn Holmes reading plenty of SA contributions during his tenure on Sunrise.

That may explain why there's a SA biz slot during Sky World News in the 0500 hour.

I understand you wanting to defend your employer skygeek, so please forgive me for defending mine. However, I won't be so obstinate and unwilling to make any criticism.

Shunting the news around the schedule never does the ITV News brand any good but I can understand why it's been done. ITV is taking a risk. A brand new, expensive chat show running for 8-weeks in a slot they currently very rarely win. And if the ratings are good, it could be a boost for the news at 10:30. I'm undecided if it's a risk worth taking - if it works it's got to be on all year round with the news always at 10:30 but I can't see that happening. It's an interesting experiment at the very least.

If it doesn't work, I'd like to see News at Tom really going for what it was originally striving to do. I feel it's slipped back into a normal news bulletin with some analysis, rather than being radically different as it first sought to be. It's rare to get a live interview or discussion now as was first intended. I think in an age where mobiles are increasingly used to get news, there is a market for something more than a bulletin telling you what's happened.

Over on Sky, they're quite rightly thinking this is a good chance to reboot it's own 10 o'clock bulletin to try and entice some of ITV's viewers. I hope they've got some strong content to back up the relaunch. I find it very odd though that there is so little confidence in its own brand that it's using Big Ben, which has been a staple of ITN's late bulletin since the 60s, and all ITV News bulletins since the 90s. Of course ITN doesn't own the clock-face but it's a pretty cheap shot, in my opinion.

Comparing ratings with a very different format in a very different time slot is far from fair. Rather than Peston, a fairer - though still quite dubious - comparison would be with On Assignment, that regularly beats Newsnight, never mind Sky News at 10.

I wish Sky News and The Nightly Show the best of luck. ITV News will continue to put a high-quality bulletin at 10:30 - the world will keep spinning, and Big Ben will keep bonging.

The Big Ben from the promo may feature in Sky's News at Ten, but


Ah ok, fair enough.

Thank you for a balanced analysis.

Not ignored, there's always going to be some negative reaction to anything, to varying volumes. What I was getting at, is that if you had Sky News (glass box) on in the background, Mrs Clutterbuck age 52 sat on her sofa, or Mr Dingle age 31 sat at his desk at work, won't really give a lot of consideration about that studio versus the Bright Blue of the olden days. They're unlikely to go "Oh yuck, that's disgusting - turn it off." They're more likely, surely, to react with more passion if the presenters were tripe, or all the content was about fluffy animals rather than news (or maybe there's a market for a news channel about fluffy animals). And hundreds isn't really very much compared to potential millions.

I'm not advocating using Big Ben in their promo, I would always personally favour originality. But it is an advert, and an advert's job is to attract business, viewership, whatever. And if their target is to lure former ITV viewers, then naturally they would use a familiar image. Take an advert from Lidl, for example, where they are advertising nappies. They are trying to poach Morrisons customers and even appear to use Morrisons branding to highlight the cost of said supermarket's nappies. I'm sure that won't extend to them using Morrison products and branding throughout their stores.

Look at how Apple standardised the perception of what a phone or tablet should look like.

I'm also pretty sure Sky used to do beauty shots of their old studios, especially when the 2005 relaunch happened. You had Kay walking up and down the stairs and wide pans and spinning desks while Eammon walked perilously towards it . On one hand, you have complaints that the glass box is dull, and then that the wide pan shots of the office/studio is gratuitous and self indulgent. And loads of broadcasters use a similar kind of shot, unfortunately that isn't a unique selling point for Sky News.

I'd go on record as saying that I actually find the old studio both at Osterley and Millbank to be quite distracting visually - too many bright colours, and also people do walk around there too, plus you have screens displaying various stuff. If anything, and I'm not advocating it, the glass box gives less room to hide for presenters and content.

Aren't they launching another new studio soon anyway? So I guess there will be some variation to the glass box.

On a lighter note, I like the fact they are doing a weekly programme about Trump, not that it's about Trump, but it would be nice to weekly 30 min programmes from various parts of the world, use the wealth of resources they have which could be utilised more. Also, is there no budget to have even just a small inside studio in Washington, I appreciate Capitol Hill, like Big Ben for the UK, brings home the fact it's key US news but the poor reporters there getting frostbite isn't too appealing. Plus, in the winter, it looks like they can't afford an actual studio.

I have zero connection to Sky.

When Does Sky News move into their 2nd studio at Sky Central??

Summer - that as specific as I can be right now.

I thought the new studio was at Sky Studios, the same building as Sky Sports News?

I hope they don'use that echo glass box when 2nd studio is intoduced??

I don't like vanity shots at all of any kind, I didn't like them in 2005, 2010 or with the glass box, and I didn't like the 2005 era either, I have said this on many posts. I thought from about 2010-2015 Sky News was spot on, and very good and had a good balance of what a News Channel should be about, it won a lot of awards during this time and did some genuinely ground-breaking coverage, backed up with a studio that was able to meet the needs and an excellent presenting team, if perhaps with two or three more presenters than it needed.

The trouble with the glass box is that it's trying to look flashy over content. Around the same time the glass box was brought in far too many good presenters were allowed to go (there was scope for some to go certainly, but not as many as did) and the sound quality is drastically worse. If they simply had the glass box and it had good sound and they still had an adequate presenter portfolio I'd be far less critical.

But they has essentially sacrificed staff numbers across many departments and not just presenters but also specialist reporters and general reporters and replaced them with talent, whilst promising, is being over-promoted before they are ready in a studio which has poorer sound and isn't cut out for certain types of program that is coming from it right now.

Often I flick on the news at six o'clock or five if it's a Friday where I sometimes finish early (rare) and if Kay Burley is not on all I often see appears to be essentially the old News, Sport Weather format for half an hour with the occasional interview that the presenter struggles through in an echo chamber and a boring monotone delivery that just makes me want to change the channel.

Essentially side from Sunrise, Sky News Tonight, and 9pm-12pm all of the other shifts can have anyone anchoring them on their own regardless of their suitability for the role. and the likes of Kimberley, Sam Naz etc frequently look out of their depth doing interviews and breaking news. Gamal and NIall are certainly two who I would say are accomplished enough to present alone over a number of shifts, but the rest are strictly "2nd in a two" overnight or weekend presenters at this point.

If you looked at Sky News a few years ago you'd never see people on key shifts stuttering and struggling their way through interviewsat 3pm and 5pm on a weekday, but now it's happening and it's far better to turn over to the other channels who have decided that studio investment should not be at the expense of the basics. Unfortunately Sky appear to have decided that a trophy is more important than the basics lately.

It is. Wires crossed.