Sky News Thread - Relaunch on Monday

I didnt post these, roight! (fast show reference)

http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/test.jpg

Thanks cat...

Are these the actual graphics they are going to use? good grief...

They must be updating it...

Article by Nick Pollard in Media Guardian [free registration required]

'Two anchors sitting at a desk isn't the only way of doing it'

Innovation is the key to being the UK's leading news channel, says the head of Sky News

Nick Pollard
Monday October 24, 2005
The Guardian


One of the beauties of the modern television age is that the chance of resting on your laurels is precisely nil. It doesn't matter that you've been the UK's leading news channel for the past 17 years. It doesn't matter that you've been the RTS's News Channel of the Year since the title was introduced. The moment you sit there smugly thinking you're doing fine is the moment you're finished.
To be honest there's never been any likelihood of Sky News doing that. For one thing there's an all-consuming drive and determination to be the best that has served us well over the years. For another, we believe in innovation - pretty well all the smart developments in UK television news in the past decade have come from Sky. And there's a third reason: the competition is just too hot to let us stand still. The BBC's indignation that they're not number one in the field knows no bounds and the new head of television news, Peter Horrocks, has staked his reputation on making it happen. ITV News is in better shape journalistically than it has been for years, and although their news channel still struggles to make an impact, they're tough rivals with a good record of exclusives.

So a great deal is riding on our new look and programme schedule which we launch today. Inevitably, people have asked "why change a winning formula"? There are plenty of good reasons but they all come down to one thing: we know we can improve and provide an even better service to our viewers. And we know how we're going to do it.

The dilemma of 24-hour news channels has always been that when big events are happening the audience turns on in droves but when things are quieter there can be an uneasy sense that many viewers feel they can do without you, or at least that a quick check each hour is all they need to reassure themselves the world isn't coming to an end.

Sky News has benefited greatly from this big story tune-in factor. We've tended to pull away from News 24 in ratings when major events are unfolding. However, in quieter times our BBC rivals are drawing level. We also perform more strongly in daytime ratings than evenings, and better during weekdays than weekends. The result of all that is there's now little to choose between us in overall ratings. One obvious answer to these problems is more appointment-to-view programming. The move into our new studio complex provides great potential for presenting our shows in more interesting and involving ways. Two anchors sitting at a desk isn't the only way of doing it. Some of our programme sequences will have three presenters for even more flexibility and liveliness in our rolling content. Some of our senior presenters - Kay Burley, Jeremy Thompson, Julie Etchingham and the former State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin - will have their own shows. Jamie's programme, the only daily show anywhere on mainstream UK television devoted to world news, will start with a real bang - an in-depth interview with the prime minister defending his foreign policy and Britain's involvement in Iraq.

There'll also be a bright new Sunrise show from 6am to 9am, fronted by Eamonn Holmes and Lorna Dunkley. We're improving our weekend output too with new mid-morning programmes and more firepower for Adam Boulton's influential Sunday talkshow. All this will be helped by our new newsroom that will free us from the constraints of the overcrowded studio and newsroom that's been our home since 1989. It is purpose-built to give us multiple presenting positions and different backgrounds, all within a genuinely working newsroom. It looks great though it's not gloss and grandeur just for its own sake.

Underlying all this is a belief that we can and will raise the overall standard of our journalism. Don't get me wrong, we're very good at what we do; we've won numerous awards over the years for our coverage of big events and breaking news but we're now mature enough as an organisation to take another step up and challenge the best television journalism elsewhere. Our successful production of Five News already demonstrates that there's a lot more to Sky News than the ability to react quickly to a story. We're well aware this is a tough task. My mentor at ITN, Sir David Nicholas, one of the greats of broadcast journalism, used to put it simply thus: "The star of the news is the news." We intend never to lose sight of that. Our new studio, new production technology and new programme schedule provide fantastic tools for our trade but our best bit of kit remains a reporting team, on location, with the skills to find out what's happening and a single-minded channel with the ability to tell the story quickly and clearly.

12.30am, and there is a repeat of the 12am bulletin. No ticker, not even the active prompts.