BBC News 24 Vs Sky News

Very nice!

Although I knew it wouldn't take long but BBC News 24 has got ahead.

During the flags era I might of voted for News 24 but ever since their corporate rebrand it has just been too dry.

Then again, Sky has had the experience, broadcasting a news channel for 12 years has really helped them to know what goes on and how to please its public.

As I believe someone else once said in this forum, I am a complete slave to the BBC and rarely watch other channels.

Because of this I have surprisingly voted for BBC News 24. I have virtually never seen Sky News (or ITN News Channel, or anything else).

I think it's also partly to do with me liking commercial-break-free news.

(Edited by StandUpAndBeSeated at 1:16 am on Aug. 30, 2001)

then what do u call those adverts for other BBC programmes they stick in every fifteen minutes.

I do believe 'trailer' is the correct term. :

Seeing as they are advertising other programmes, they can be described as adverts. Just because they only promote other BBC programmes doesn't make them less tedious

Not for me!

Well I'm not sure about anyone else but I find seeing the same trailer over and over again very tedious.
I'd rather be subjected to endless Norton Finance adverts than having to watch a trailer telling me the weather is on every 30 minutes... every 15 minutes.
The arguement that Sky has adverts and News 24 doesn't is wrong.
By definition the 'trailers' are ADVERTISING other products/services, hence they are adverts.
From what I've seen News 24 always take these every 15 minutes or at least every 30. It would be very hard to construct a constantly flowing live news programme for an entire hour. It seems that it's very hard for News 24 to construct a news programme for 15 minutes without a mistake - as is the case for any news channel, not soley N24 - so taking a break gives presenters and directors and producers etc valuable time to sort themselves out.

One thing I do like is that I know that at 59 minutes and 30 seconds past I can switch to Sky News and instantly see what their headlines are - this is something I wish News 24 would do.

Another thing however is that after watching Sky for 4 days now, I still wouldn't know if you asked me what minutes past the hour the sport, business and weather are. News24 signposts their clock format a lot better in my opinion.

Sport always at 20 past and 50 mins past, business normally at about 40 mins past, depending on the time of day.
That's the thing I hate about News 24, though.
ITN's slogan when it launched the NC was 'news doesn't happened to a schedule', yet they decided to set a schedule for their news programmes...
The thing that makes Sky so much more interesting to watch, or even have on in the background, is that it is so much more fluent than News 24.
If there is important news they will not go to the weather, as News 24 continually do.
They wont interupt breaking news with sports and business bulletins, which would make me want to look elsewhere for coverage of an event.
The idea of a 24 hour news channel having specific times for specific things seems pointless to me.
Surely the point of a 24 hour channel means that they have more flexibility to cover events.
It would appear that with the BBC's history of appointment to view bulletins they don't know how to operate a bulletin lasting longer than 30 minutes, without providing specific slots for everything to neatly fit into.
Fine if you want to be brought up to date there and then but not fine if you do want to see wider coverage of the day's news, rather than just soundbites.

News24 does drop weather, business and sport to cover breaking news. Just ask anyone who works on those parts of the schedule.

Many people will turn onto News24 at specific times to get a weather or sport summary which is why it's signposted so much.

I've only seen them do it for very high profile events - release of the Bulger killers, Archer Trial, Dando trial etc.
As a rule I find that if a story is fairly important they will just reach the boundary for the weather/business or sport and then cover than whilst they get their act together.

I have only once seen News 24 cut into a business bulletin/weather bulletin/sport bulletin to cover something.
For example, Jack Straw was speaking in Macedonia about NATO's new operation there. News 24 were in the middle of a business bulletin and instead of cutting into that to cover the press conference they just carried on and only included the press conference (which was in the mean time being covered live on Sky News) in a later report.
I was using the BBC Text service on News 24 when instead of cutting into the weather (which had just started) they waited for about 5 minutes to break the story about the Hamilton's libel trial. Then they spent a while covering that instead of just doing it before the weather started.
It could've been done before the weather because it was reported on Sky before they went to the ads at the bottom of the hour.

Speed News 24 up, give it a more friendly atmosphere, add a little life into the coverage and you've got a semi decent news channel.