The Sky News Thread

3 newsreaders was OTT. But the whole studio, graphics and pace of it was energetic and enthusiastic. It's all gone now.

Sky News has been turned into something so similar to BBC News, but it seemingly used to be proud to be so different to it. Even the theme music must be the most mundane any news channel has ever had.

I like how bold some of the presentation was from the Noughties and about a decade or so ago and think 2010-11 was probably the best presentation Sky had.

That said back then some of the presentation seemed to be overly flashy for the sake of it and slightly ridiculous looking back - 3 presenters and presenters running around the studio for example (particularly prominent with the 2005 rebrand but it was still there with Afternoon Live for years after - you'd have Kay or A.N. Other sprinting from the newswall to the island trying not to fall during the voiceover). Some of the programme names too weren't great - Randall & Boulton Unleashed sounded more like they were about to maul away on you like a tiger than host a news show.

I do think some of the branding now though could use work. The 'Sarah Jane Mee' show (formerly The Kay Burley Show') name has always felt out of it place and makes it awkward when the named presenter is often as they either have to go to generic branding or do the whole ''I'm X, Y is off' routine. If only there was a programme name that Sky have used in the past and the BBC have recently done away with at least for now.

Similarly 'The News Hour' branding is odd since surely every hour is meant to be a NewsHour. I do like the fact that the 6pm hour at least has a similar name as back in the 'Live At Five' days despite the 6pm hour having the same presenter & content it often felt the poor relation to the 5pm hour.I can't help feeling 5pm being 'Live At Five' and maybe calling the 6pm hour something like the 'The 6 O'Clock News' (though I know Radio 4 have a show named that) would make the 6pm hour still stand out.

To give Sky the benefit of the doubt I think these days they save the more flashy/brash presentation for big events like the UK election or Brexit Day - the presentation for both was widely praised on here so Sky do have it in them - and the day-to-day output is maybe a bit more back-to-basics to make the special output stand out a bit more.
Maybe though I'm trying to find a reason that isn't there though.

Kay sat down from 10th April 2011 until the glass box launched in October 2016 (with few exceptions in front of the news wall with a small side table), then again in the old Millbank studio and I think in the early days of the glass box she had some sort of barstool. So she actually sat down the best part of the last decade! And a small correction freddied: The news wall changed to the giant notebook screen in late 2013, not 14!

I don't really watch Sky for the exact reason that they seem to value personality far too much in my opinion.

Having someone stand up on a news programme would've been laughable once upon a time. Let alone for an entire two hour slot.

They should do away with the adverts and make her stand there for a full three hours!

I don't know why the 2005 look has so many fans, franky it was far too over the top and is exactly the kind of excess that they needed to get rid of to be honest. It was ridiculous for a news channel to be so focused on such things.

We are now however at the opposite extreme. They certainly needed to tones thing down, but now it feels like they've just kept going and going and the brakes have totally failed and the cars gone way past it's target location.

The 2010 look was the best era for me,, the straps were at their when they went down to the one line straps across all HD/SD feeds, which was about half way through that look.

I just think the 2005 era “drama” provided by the music, presentation style, graphics etc went well with the channel’s aim at the time to provide rapid-moving rolling news coverage. The dramatic music and TOTH “voice of god” added to that sense of drama and anticipation to keep viewers hooked and waiting for more.

Nowadays the actual *content* is still good. The journalism is often great, and perhaps better than it used to be in 2005. But the way it’s presented audiovisually now is dull and monotonous. Maybe that doesn’t matter for the average viewer so long as the journalism is good quality, but to my eye it just feels like they’ve given up on everything else and are happy to keep things a bit drab and plain.

Indeed I think since this site is a TV presentation site there's naturally going to be a lot of focus on the presentation but the actual content is fine.
The presentation may have been snazzier 10 years ago but my goodness some of the content pre-HD was dire. A quick glance at any edition of Charlie Brooker's excellent Newswipe shows as much - you'd have gimmicky ideas such as Dermot's Economic Cycle, 10 minute interviews with Peter Andre or Jedward, the repetitive 15 minute newswheel, reporters having to patronisingly explain things like snow to the viewers and inane drivel like John Terry's love life leading the news.

While Sky's presentation may be uninspiring these days a lot of the time, one strong aspect it has is that I can tune any time night or day and be very likely to get a comprehensive at least 30 minute overview of the main stories of the day in the UK and around the world presented by a highly capable anchor. I know what to expect when I tune in.

Whereas CNN's new London studio may be snazzy and new but often there's very little news on the international channel from outside of America or the UK and their weekend output is pitiful - if you tune in at the wrong time there's barely any international news at all for several hours. Half the the time even on weekdays you have no clue if the scheduled international programme is going to be on air or bumped off air for some random piece of Trump news that causes everything else to be dropped and means the US channel is simulcast for days on end.

There's a lot to be said for 'safe and predictable' rather than output which may have style but lack substance.

Yes, easy to forget for quite sometime they had the 15 minute newswheel from 8-10pm in primetime and elsewhere in the schedules. That said though if Sky really wanted a point of difference at breakfast that format would be ideal there - everything you need to know in 15 minutes - no waffle with your waffles!

Kay doing a DTL interview with Hancock who appears to be outside NBH - just goes to show that doing a programme from Westminster doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get the politicians in person...

Exactly. And I'm sure viewers don't care where the studio is. It might as well come from the glass box.
BBC Breakfast comes from Salford and it doesn't seem to worry viewers that they normally don't have these politicians physically the studio.

Hancock clearly doesn’t want to come into the ‘lions den’! As said above it’s another point about location being that worth while as a selling point but also Kay still managed to get a decent clip where Hancock appeared to brush aside Tony Abbot’s so called homophobic and sexist views because “he’s good at trade”. So I don’t think Kay/the team will be too concerned that he wasn’t in the studio for the interview after all.