Coverage of the Tory Leadership saga

I think Howard could actually win against Blair...or even against Gordon Brown.

I say this because even if Howard "has something of the night about him" -- whatever that means -- at least you know where he's at. Furthermore, Howard is tenacious enough to engage Blair in real debate...Tony hasnt had anything close to this sort of a fight from recent Tory leaders.

Blair, on the other hand, has a "nice guy" image, but his policies on the NHS, education, and especially Iraq have really ruffled peoples' feathers. Now, if Iraq becomes a "Second Vietnam" for the USA, it'll be the UK's "First Vietnam."

Analogously, Tony Blair would end up "going the way of Lyndon Johnson" and the UK's "Richard Nixon" could easily be Mr. Howard (Don't forget "Tricky Dicky" had a dubious past before becoming President).

So, a long story short: it's not that untenable that Thatcherite Conservatism could make a real come-back in the UK.

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ah, you thought I was finished didnt you? One more loose end: the LibDems. To put it bluntly, they have no chance...their message is too diffuse and their party too diverse. Politics is nothing more than salesmanship, and you can't make a sale when you yourself aren't even sure what it is you are selling. Therefore, don't worry about a Liberal Democratic government anytime soon.

The Poll tax , the riots and the 'did you threaten to overrule ' incident is fact not rumour ...and I am nothing to do with 'Broadcast news! '

Its all about the Thatcher years....either you liked them or you didn't ......don't forget its thanks to the Handbagger that Michael Green was allowed to 'buy' Thames , and replace it with a half baked station - (and looks whats happened since!) and then there was Rupert -allowed to progress with his global domination. Any politician who was a Thatcher supporter has my deep suspicion I'm afraid ..just on whats happened to tv alone ...never mind the Falklands, the Belgrano, the Poll tax , the NHS, privatisation, the sleaze etc etc

I think the theory is right though - a caretaker leader while they groom their intended next PM. As for Hague - too much too soon ...they should have waited another few years before choosing him!

Neither interesting nor surprising, to be honest.

If you recall (and I presume you don't, as it was not mentioned) News 24 got better viewing figures than Sky during the last Tory leadership election contest over 700 days ago, but generally Sky has maintained its lead. Probably something to do with News 24's demographics - i.e. older and by consequence more likely to be conservative. Sky's audience remains quite young.

Either way, I would actually be quite pleased to see Sky getting kicked about in the ratings a bit. The channel has got very sloppy over the past few years. It's improving now, and more money is being spent on correspondents and international coverage, but they do need a kick up the arse every now and again.

It's nowhere near as dull as News 24, and the presenters remain leagues ahead, but competition is good.

With regards to N24 "outdoing" Sky, well it got higher viewing figures, it doesn't necessarily mean it was better. As I said, Sky were there scooping the opposition with news of who was doing what all night. News 24 took a good half an hour almost to work out that Howard was going to declare.

Yes, funny how when News 24 (or anything BBC) gets beaten in the ratings, it "doesn't matter because it was better quality" and justifies the licence fee, yet when Sky or ITV get beaten (like in this rare instance), they are obviously crap. I didn't once turn to News 24 during any of the Tory leadership stuff, because I know it will just be the same old mundane, stale presentation. I don't think any lead News 24 have will last unless there are fundamental changes.

Well you were in the minority as more people watched coverage of the Tory vote on News 24 than Sky News or ITVNC, even though the same BBC News Special was being simulcast on BBC1.

Plus, you are lying when you suggest that ITVNC gets more viewers than News 24, ITVNC only gets a 0.1% share, and often does not even register on the ratings system, compared to News 24 which gets an average share of 0.4%, and Sky News which is top of the pack of 24 hour news channels most of the time with an average of 0.6%. Addtionally more people watch Sky News and News 24 for longer than ITV NC (7 minutes and 10 minutes respectively, with ITVNC only getting 2 minutes).

I didn't say the ITV News Channel, I said ITV, referring back to the "anything BBC" comment.

In your humble opinion



Let's get this straight- Littlejohn is an "improvement"?



Whom they couldn't cross to during the Capitol gun scare, because of Littlejohn. Kind of defeats the point of a rolling news channel really. Your sources have been promising more Littlejohn type programs for months now c@t, so I hardly expect the situation to improve.

It really sums up the poor management of Sky news over the last 3 years with their schizophrenic policies. A couple of years ago I remember being told that all extra programming (the book show, money matters(?) etc) were being cancelled to put all resources into rolling news coverage. Then a huge U-turn to bring back programming segments. God knows how much money they wasted getting the short lived 2001 graphics designed, which were dumped within about 3 months. If the BBC had done any of this with News 24 the forum would be up in arms about useless, money wasting BBC managers, but of course Nick Pollard is considered god-like here- a man who by all accounts would have been out of a job over the Forlong affair but for the fortuitous (for Pollard) suicide of Dr. David Kelly.

I also believe that the new News 24 with increased emphasis on analysis (something frankly Sky and ITV have been shown to be inept at) will wipe the floor with Sky (they already wipe the floor with ITV), with Sky seeming increasingly dull and repetitive (however often their shallow presenters prance around in front of a poorly-implemented newswall). Time will tell.

I think you are entering a very dangerous area when you talk about James Forlong, and would be cautious as to what you say with regards to his reasons for suicide.

We know why they had a "temporary" situation in 2001 - because the entire studio, including the installation of new technology - was being rebuilt. That wasn't a "waste of money".

The Tory leadership viewing figures are, as I have said, not particularly surprising. It has happened before. I don't think having an older, more conservative audience is anything to delight in. Sky has by far the "best" audience: young, upwardly mobile, etc.

If you are in some way suggesting that Sky News has been poorly managed over the past few years, and that News 24 has done brilliantly well, you are seriously wide of the mark. Sky has won more recognition from the industry these past few years than ever before, has significantly boosted audience figures and expanded its international base, has secured new talent for programming and has performed brilliantly in Kosovo, the general election, on September 11, won the war in Iraq without a doubt, has revamped a studio it has had for the past decade, has revamped its graphics leading to copycat attempts by News 24, has introduced Sky News Active - a genuine revolution for news channels, again copied by the BBC, from next year will open a dedicated overseas news operation for Ireland, has revamped a Westminster operation it has had for the past 13 years, opened new bureaux in India and reopened in Africa, expanded its US operations, bought a helicopter...

Not bad for a few years of work, actually.

News 24 has done comparatively little in that timespan.

I don't think you should be expecting changes tomorrow, or the day after, or the week after, and so on... but if there are not significant changes, I will be amazed.

This whole "Sky is crap at analysis" is a load of tosh, frankly.

There is no more analysis on News 24 than there is anywhere else.

You seem to be naive enough to believe anything that comes out of a company's mouth. Just because Roger - up my own arse - Mosey says News 24 is an upmarket, snotty little channel for "well educated folk" does not mean it is.

The recent ITC report concluded that News 24 tried to be the "news channel of record" during the Iraq war but was no less prone to making a complete f-ck up of things with regards to information than Sky or ITV were.

Stop swallowing the BBC bile and just wake up.

Yes, I have to agree with that. Every single "grassroots" local Conservative association the networks have been to have been all typically blue rinsers who'll be lucky to see it through to the next General Election anyway.

After Howards speech Sky went to his constiuency association, and these old duffers could barely string two words together, the most incisive comment was "Yes, he's a very nice man". This isn't Sky's demographic, I bet half of this lot haven't even got remote controls for the telly and their digiboxes have probably been sat on News 24 since they bought it without realising their are other channels.

Which is exactly why I am not talking about his suicide, but the known facts that a report was fabricated from Osterley (a reporter on a warship cannot produce a report using file footage without contacting base. Equally he could not 'label' this footage "Exclusive" and put into a package that goes out as live- several people at Osterley must have been involved). This news was broken by the BBC's "fighting the war", but the subsequent news coverage of it (that I believe would have led to the inevitable resignation of Nick Pollard) was diminished to nothingness by the suicide of Dr David Kelly, and so Nick Pollard stumbles on. The buck stops with Nick Pollard, in the same way that Richard Sambrook may find himself in difficulty following the Hutton report. I suggest you read my post more carefully.



I didn't make any such statement of demographics. To be honest I think that people switching between News 24 and Sky would have seen Huw Edwards vrs Adam Boulton, and rather unsurprisingly the vast majority chose one of this country's favourite newsreaders. And as more "recognisable" faces develop on News 24 (Sissons, Sopel, Hill etc) I think more and more people will be making the switch regardless of their age.



I didn't say News 24 has been managed brilliantly, in fact far from it. But yes, Sky News has been managed very poorly for reasons I stated before.



If you consider success to be judged by industry awards won, I suggest you don't hold your hopes too high over the war in Iraq (largely for the point at the top of this post). As far as I'm aware, the BBC has won every such award put forward for the Iraq war so far, and I believe this will continue into the RTS and Baftas next year.



My point is, the changes will lead to further regression towards opinion based "analysis" programmes. On your point on analysis- why do you think they introduced Littlejohn? They saw it as an analysis-based programme that made up for their presenters' (and I use that word appropriately) woeful inability to 'work' a three or four way debate (even Adam Boulton is painful to watch). Many of the journalists (and I use that word appropriately) who present on News 24 have shown themselves very capable of this approach, and so it will be expanded in the revamp. It's relatively cheap, it's interesting and it beats repeating the same 30 minute loop until news breaks.