Sky News' Stand Up & Be Counted

What are your thoughts on Sky News' latest initiative to get the thoughts of the news from a young teenagers perspective?

I think, from having already checked out the SUBC website (https://standup.news.sky.com/app/), it's quite nice to see a major news broadcaster have a dedicated focus on young peoples views and opinions too; Although I'm sure Sky already did, and others do, but perhaps not to this extent, especially when they've grasped social media, and the need for the youngsters of today to get their points head - after all, they are the next generation!

What will be interesting is to see the content online, and how that then gets put to air - will they have a separate programme called 'Stand Up, Be Counted' that airs half-hour or hourly on a weekly basis, or simply merge their views, thoughts and opinions into topics that adult viewers (Me and you), are already discussing?

One of the big points of this, and the reason why I think they've launched it around this time, is to get their thoughts on politics, what with the Scottish Referendum just around the corner, and of course the next General Elections not too far away either.

Good concept, it will be interesting to see how it pans out. It's like a more grown up 'Newsround'.

https://standup.news.sky.com/app/what_is_stand_up_be_counted

I'm one of the people helping to produce this coverage, and while I can't share specific plans, what I can say is that we'll very much be guided by where our users/viewers take the conversation (obviously the focus is political, but there's room for other stuff as well), so if you're in the 16-25 age bracket, we very much want to hear from you.

Best of luck with this, it's an exciting area and good to see Sky go full in with a strong effort with this audience. Saw the infographic tweet about the nude photo stuff in my Twitter feed yesterday, nice little visual bit of data.

I guess one of the early challenges is that when attracting young people, at first the audience may be those young people hyper-engaged in politics, quite vocal about what should be covered and what views should be seen, but the risk of too closely following their agenda could mean you don't really expand to the demographic not already watching the news.

Suppose that's one of the things they'll be working through!

Considering BBC Three may be off the air this time next autumn as the only real outlet on television that gives a voice to the 15-24 demographic through it's Free Speech programme, this initiative from Sky News is welcome.