*The Press Release*
Sky News – available on terrestrial television for the first time
Channel 5 announced today that it has awarded its early breakfast news contract to Sky News
The contract means that from 7 January 2002 Sky News Sunrise will be simulcast on Channel 5 between 6.00am and 6.30am each weekday and from 7am until 8am on Saturdays; the first time Sky News will be seen on British terrestrial television.
Sky News Sunrise, which takes over from Channel 5's current early breakfast supplier the ITN News Channel, will continue to be presented by its current anchor, Simon McCoy. From February 2002, Simon will co-present the show with Julie Etchingham – who joins Sky News from BBC Breakfast News.
The new deal also includes an option for Channel 5 to simulcast with Sky News when big stories break, live. And Sky News is contracted to produce a number of short turnaround documentaries, to be shown on Channel 5 during 2002 – commissioned when major national or international stories warrant more in-depth investigation.
Nick Pollard, Head of Sky News, said, 'We are very happy that Sky News has been awarded its first terrestrial news contract. The deal will bring Britain's most popular 24 hour news service to an audience who might never have seen Sky News before. We hope that once they've sampled it, they'll want more.'
Sky News has built its reputation on its live coverage of breaking news. This contract means that over 20 million homes in the UK will now have access to Sky's rolling news service.
SN
Steve Naylor
The special programmes will probably be a bit like the Sarah Payne Trial special that was on Sky News last Wednesday... was a very good programme.
ST
stegranadaitv1
Well done Sky!
ITN News Channel presenters always make mistakes and half of their reports are from ITV, Channel4 or Channel5.
Sky are good original etc. So well done Sky!
Can I say what are they going to put on between 6.30-7.00 because of what I read Sky News is only going to be on half an hour a day?
If you ask me Sky News should provide all the News on 5.
CA
CrystalAvenger
stegranadaitv1 posted:
Can I say what are they going to put on between 6.30-7.00 because of what I read Sky News is only going to be on half an hour a day?
I guess they will start kids programmes a bit earlier than they do currently.
BP
Big Phil
Hmmm, if they showed all of Sunrise, it would be a serious contender to Breakfast, I wonder why they don't do this?
Anyway, the date of the 7th of January seems to be an important one for Channel 5. Sky News starts, 5 News is relaunched, I wonder what else, if anything, will happen? That will no doubt be the day of the return to 'normal' non-Christmas idents (Channel 5 always have them on a week too long), but the current ones look
very
temporary. Remember when they changed from the original look to the white one, they changed the look of their trailers only a few weeks before, and blow me if they haven't just changed them recently. Their idents could be so much better, they're certainly not normal Channel 5 standard at the moment, so fingers crossed!
Maybe they will expand Sky News's slot in time. They could move some Childrens programmes from 9:00-10am before the Wright Stuff. Most of their programmes for kids seem to be for pre-school children who will be at home at this time anyway.
I suspect Channel 5 don't want to simply give away 3 hours of their airtime every morning, that's why Sky is only getting 30 minutes on a weekday.
Sunrise is a serious contender to Breakfast. I do believe there is a large audience out there for a breakfast programme like Sunrise. However, Channel 5 really can't show three hours of a totally different network every morning. If the Sky News brand slightly ups viewing figures - let's face it, for most people it is a new brand that hasn't been sampled - then Channel 5 may consider taking Sky News for perhaps an hour from 7-8am. I think 7am-7.30am makes a bit more sense than 6am-6.30am.
The 7-8am slot on Saturday sounds much more promising. There are still a lot of people working on Saturdays and the demand for a breakfast programme is just as high IMO.
I doubt it'll make a huge different to Sky's viewing figures. With Sky's international audience then being available on C5 means just a tiny blip of an increase in figures. It's more of a strategic event than anything else. For Sky to have broken on to terrestrial TV is just so they can secure a footing IMO. It must be the start of an attempt to win the C5 News contract again.