I wonder how long till
a memo is circulated telling staff in the building to stop waving their arms in the air
when they catch themselves on camera in the background.
Im sure they have, doubt staff will pay any noice. They never do.
So I've had time to watch more of it and maybe some of the criticism was over the top, but I still don't like it.
Firstly the sound is terrible, how that was not caught in tests I will never know. It sounds horrible and I hope they can do something to fix it by changing the studio. If it cannot be fixed because of the fact it is an open space that is enclosed with lots of hard surfaces, then whoever designed the set should be asking themselves serious questions if they spent so much money to build a set and it only occured to them on launch day that they might have this problem.
Secondly there is FAR TOO MUCH GOING ON behind the presenter. People moan about swishes and over the top graphics, and Sky of course have been guilty of that, but the distractions behind the presenter with people walking are the single most annoying thing I have seen in the last while on Sky News. This just wasn't possible in every other studio they had The argument was previously that nothing should distract from th news, well this is and far worse than any voice over that lasts a few seconds or TOTH, it's constant.
Thirdly it is too empty there and nothing will change my mind about Sky having lost it's identity. There are two coloiurs that Sky News are associated with. Blue dating back 25 years and red for most of that time period too. In this new set they have effectively totally abandoned blue and Red is basically gone if you ignore the straps and the logo. As someone who has done courses in marketing and brand management this is one of the golden rules for successful brands. When you are refreshing things you keep your identity.
Do you see Easyjet saying that orange and white are bad so we'll change to green and yellow? Do you see Samsung saying that they are going to change to red and black? Do you see BBC deciding they will change their colours to blue and white? Do you see CNN deciding Orange is not good anymore so we will go for gold and white? Do you see NBC deciding that the colours of their logo are stupid and changing all of them?
As for coverage of breaking news. Sophy Ridge, a person who is at best a poor standard presenter has her own prime time programme on a Friday, and also a slot on Saturday and Sunday, because 11 people have left or been let go. Her delivery as a presenter is very robotic and cold, she comes across as completely uncaring and forced delivery in last weeks breaking news. Before her we had two of the cover presengers, one of which could barely string a line together without hesitating. This was at 5pm, a time where JT and Andrew Wilson used tocover.
And before anyone says that it wasn't helped by studio testing, of course it wasn't. but the simple fact is that the relief presenters they have are generally not up to the job as was proven last Friday and over the course of the year they are going to have to use them a lot because there are going to be times when they are four or five presenters down, whether that is through illness, being posted abroad, maternity leave, holiday etc, so these people will have to be used.
So far we've seen the following leave
Andrew Wilson
Lorna Dunkley
Samantha Simmonds
Paula Middlehurst
Martin Stanford
Jannat Jalil
Mark Longhurst
Dharshini David
Jeremy Thompson
Eammonn Holmes
Sam Washington
Hannah Tallett
Now I've said it before, that they were top heavy in the presenter area and they were. But now we have gone to having the likes of Sophy Ridge, who is an excellent political hack, getting her own hours, and apart from Gamal, the relief presenters of Sam, Tom and Claudia who for me simply don't cut it. For me they are a couple of presenters short. Any two of the above still being at the channel would make it a lot better and the fact is they are going to have to work a few shifts most weeks unless Sky simply bans holidays for it's staff or makes people work double shifts on a regular basis.
As for the comments that the journalism is good still, well I agree it is still good, but even that has took a hit with the number of bureaus being cut and the number of reporters that have also been let go. I've noticed that reporters have been much slower to get to stories in the last couple of months, compared to previously, but again hardly surprising when a number have left their roles and the remaining ones have to cover much greater territory. But at least the foreign corrospondents haven't been cut, a big exit there, really would be serious
As for the comment about Sky coverage in businesses, this is from my own experience in Ireland, it might not be the same in the UK but here Sky News is shown a lot in receptions, offices, on screens etc, because Sky News covers Irish stories as well as British when the BBC don't. However with the drop in business content lately and the general lack of an Irish feed for those who stream or get the channel digitally rather than through TV, they just switch to BBC since they only have the choice of Sky News International now compared to the Sky News Ireland feed in the past. like the TV. I don't have any staistics, it's just an observation.
Firstly he was in front of the blue background in front of Millbank as he normally would do then they showed a clip and after it he had a white background behind him.
Did they really move him to get rid of the colour. The white background looks terrible. It's like someone forgot to paint the backdrop or they just found some random cupboard.
Clearly there was too much colour in the first shot and that was not allowed, Staggering.
Kay now using big screen with a map of Calais Jungle, with no straps or headings on the screen to tell you what it is, not very good if you are hard of hearing.
Well done to Sky for doing something different but no, it's not really working. For a glass studio you need an interesting view beyond the studio, and they simply haven't got it. And with inside the studio being absolutely minimalist it doesn't help either.
Like the idea but it fails in the execution for me.
The main thing is that they are building another set. So as bad as this one is, at least there's some hope...
A few other observations:
The white backdrops for down the line interviews from Millbank look ridiculous - like the guest is being beamed in from heaven or something. Something of the occult about it.
I don't care about the blue/red going. And you really can't compare that to the NBC peacock. Sky has never had hugely distinctive colour scheme
But there is no colour or depth to any of it at all - the graphics, the studio ... it's just completely desaturated.
There's also no branding. You'd think for a company as brand-conscious as Sky that they'd want their logo somewhere.
And finally, as someone above excellently pointed out - the sparkle has gone. Sky used to be a bit edgy and distinctive (animating graphics, those virtual reality floor maps over the newsroom, programme specific stuff..) that's just gone.
The approach seems to be to get the studio and the graphics out of the way of the pictures as much as possible. Everything white/minimalist/tiny thin fonts/tiny straps/mini live bug.
In which case, why not just turn the thing into Euronews circa 1998 and do away with the whole lot?
I don't fault the journalism at all, but visually it is anemic.
Sky news has had Blue in it's DNA since birth, so saying that Sky News doesn't have any defined colours is wrong, the main colours have been blue since the start, with Red coming later on.
Blue was present in 1989 through to today and Red came in during 1998.
Luckily Osterley is still there, although they'd rather save face than use it and admit that they need to make serious tweaks to this new studio.
Personally I think the 2005 Era had too much preso gimmicks, the 2010 revamp was good though. A good balance.
Ian King now again with white background looks like the blue background is banned, if they host Ian king Live like that I will eat my hat. Looks like they don';t want to mix preso styles so it;s glass box and white in other studios not blue still in there.
Nice joke about Kay saying that Ian King is jealous about where she is. Considering the white background behind him, I can only agree with Kay on this, maybe it's some kind of psychological effect to make the new studio look good by making that white look so bad.
Sorry to say that the 2016 look is much better than 2005. That video looks so very dated to me!
How long into the 2005 opening before you are presented with any facts? This is rolling news remember. The 2016 look seems to be more focused on removing the bling and bringing the viewer immediate quality information, on multiple platforms. Nowt wrong with that!
Sorry to say that the 2016 look is much better than 2005. That video looks so very dated to me!
How long into the 2005 opening before you are presented with any facts? This is rolling news remember. The 2016 look seems to be more focused on removing the bling and bringing the viewer immediate quality information, on multiple platforms. Nowt wrong with that!
Obviously it looks dated, its years old, but at the time, Sky news seemed to be proud and daring, now it just seems a bit dim and flat. I don't think there has ever been bling, style yes, and this box don't have it. That is what made me watch Sky news.
We can agree to disagree, those that like the box can carry on watching, those that don't, like me, will bugger off elsewhere. I just think its a shame how Sky have decided to take the channel down this road. Im sure Sky will still be good at breaking news. I will come back for that.
Maybe it will pay off, maybe I am old fashioned and not with the times.
