Its time for Sky News Scotland

Having just read about the new service for Ireland by Sky News I think the time is right for a Skn News service dedicated to Scotland as the Sky News service leans very heavily towards English stories.

Take today for example - all we heard about was the English Football crisis - there were other things going on in the world besides this you know?

I cant help thinking what the coveragewould have been if it had been Barry Ferguson that had refused a drug test - would we have seen the big WHO HA - me thinks not???

It is time to break away from this bias we see day in day out - and before you all start NO I am not a nationalist and dont wany independence but I would like our news service to be fair!!!

Well, some time ago, Barney, Sky got together with Scottish Television to produce "Sky Scottish" for a few hours each evening.

Sadly, its viewing figures fell straight through the floor, so it folded.

I think they closed it down the week the viewer was on holiday, so he wouldn't notice!

Not enough potential audience equals not enough reason to re-introduce it, I guess.

Ah Yes Sky Scottish, I remember that.

Well I don't believe they gave it enough time to settle in, as it was only on the air from 6.00pm until 8.00pm, when really it should have been on until 10.00pm. And for about a year it shared space with the ill fated Granada Talk TV, which soon folded and in late 1997, the evening on this frequency was taken by Sky Box Office 3 and by 1998 SBO3 took up all of the time, except from 6pm-8pm, it looked kinda odd whenever they promoted films in the day and there was no 6pm showing, anyway it came to an end in June 1998 and eventually SBO3 became 24 hours.

It was a shame that SS didn't take off like other channels, but rather amusingly we can say it lasted longer than Sky 2!

I'd agree with that, one hundred percent, Sir.

the problem is, sky run a seperate service for people in Ireland, because they must comply with their laws I guess. So they have a seperate RoI stream going, why not add an opt out for 30mins and advertise it as a commitment to more regional news etc...

I think I have to disagree with the original poster... the context of the example he gave is completely different.

You could hardly say that Sky News and come to that any other national news broadcaster glossed over such major Scottish stories and the dunblane shootings.

Sports updates are always compressed, even with all these sports channels on the Sky platform, certain motor racing events for example never get televised.

The various goings on in professional football are almost unprecedented, and although of no personal interest, a large percentage of the population would be interested in this story.

I think this is a shame, because it's overshadowed the tory conference.

Ohh come on - you can hardly compare the Dumblane shootings with the English Football farce!!!

Also the Sky Scottish channel only showed re-runs of Scotland Today. I am talking about a rolling news service that looks at international stories, UK stories (but without the English bias) and Scottish stories ( like the BBC Scotland wanted to do with the Six News)

And I think the English football shambles only interests English viewers - Sky, BBC and ITV are serving the UK.

The other home nations have important fixtures this weekend - how much have we heard about them today??

Sadly it wont change -we have just to put up with it!!

I imagine that Sky News is, yet again, part being used as a political tool. This sort of thing will keep the Irish government quite happy with Sky; not too much fuss for Sky and football rights in the Republic, then. There are not the same issues in Scotland.

Then again, the New York Times did report not too long ago that Murdoch was wanting to turn Sky into an international service, and this could be a first step.

It is, however, a very significant move for Sky. They've really never done anything like this before.

What if Scotland were to have a dedicated 24hr news service!

Surely a national organisation could arrange it...

That is exactly my point - I am sure they could!

My feelings are not just with Sky - the BBC ane ITV are as bad.

Look at the night Beckham left M U - the new at ten was extended by 15 minutes - come on its FOOTBALL for goodness sake - get a grip!!

I don't see the point in this - it's as pointless as the Scottish Six idea.

No, they run it cause they can make more money by selling ads seperately. Sky One, E4, and soon MTV all do the same thing. All advertising on Sky Ireland must be BACC cleared. In fact, the fact that it doesn't have to comply with Irish law is a sticking point for Dermot Ahern, the Minister For Everything Left Over When the Other Departments Were Doled Out (Communications, Energy, the Marine, and Natural Resources), who wants to change the EU's Television sans frontiers directive so that TV services are regulated in every country in which they can be picked up, or at least, every country at which they are maketed. Fat chance of that happening, I know that the UK, Germany, Luxembourg and others would be opposed. (Dermot is clever though. He is putting it through under the clever guise of wanting to protect children from inappropiate advertising.)

All this is rather off topic. I'm sure Scotland deserves an opt-out service every bit as much as Ireland, after all you do have your own Parliament now.