Sky News

I found the precis of the questions on the astons just served as a reminder of how far the panellists had strayed from the point. I asked a friend who watched on the BBC, and he said he didn't get as much of a feeling of that, except when Clegg brought it up.

I think for Sky News it will include HD figures, as it is a simulcast with the SD channel, like the Sky Sports HD channels which also have their ratings included in the SD channel figure (unlike say BBC HD where the ratings are reported separately as that is how the BBC chooses them to be reported).

Shows that it was worth simulcasting on Sky 3, I know some people were sceptical of the point but it's obviously benefited from being higher up the EPG.

I wonder how many people stayed on to watch it after QT.

310,000 apparently.

The whole thing was a Murdoch/Cameron love fest in my opinion, and the most amusing thing was when they announced that he'd won the YouGov poll, I was on The Sun's YouGov page at that point, and Clegg was infact 10% in the lead.

Do the BBC have a choice - or are their HD ratings reported separately because the channel isn't a straight simulcast, but has a unique schedule?

Sky News HD picture quality was superb. I love the lack of on screen clutter with the logo and strap at the bottom. Hopefully the channel will launch full time with regular programming after May 7th.

Sky news is so pro-conservatives. When talking to experts Kay kept saying "how did your guy do". What is wrong with her. It is not that hard to remember three names.

Looks like they managed to keep a fairly solid audience after the debate although there was a significant drop between 21.45 and 22.00. Peak was 2.3 million. Thanks to rzt on DS for posting this breakdown.

.... .. BBC News... Sky News
19:00:00 ... 0.130 ... 0.141
19:15:00 ... 0.095 ... 0.144
19:30:00 ... 0.118 ... 0.173
19:45:00 ... 0.295 ... 0.445
20:00:00 ... 1.121 ... 1.748
20:15:00 ... 1.239 ... 2.000
20:30:00 ... 1.340 ... 2.186
20:45:00 ... 1.464 ... 2.269
21:00:00 ... 1.523 ... 2.334
21:15:00 ... 1.485 ... 2.213
21:30:00 ... 0.874 ... 1.604
21:45:00 ... 0.551 ... 1.160
22:00:00 ... 0.523 ... 0.645
22:15:00 ... 0.410 ... 0.535
22:30:00 ... 0.220 ... 0.337
22:45:00 ... 0.165 ... 0.269
23:00:00 ... 0.133 ... 0.227
23:15:00 ... 0.085 ... 0.201
23:30:00 ... 0.076 ... 0.195
23:45:00 ... 0.098 ... 0.173
00:00:00 ... 0.099 ... 0.122
00:15:00 ... 0.101 ... 0.112
00:30:00 ... 0.109 ... 0.080
00:45:00 ... 0.084 ... 0.065
01:00:00 ... 0.071 ... 0.068
01:15:00 ... 0.108 ... 0.058
01:30:00 ... 0.065 ... 0.046
01:45:00 ... 0.060 ... 0.038

Sky News was the most watched digital channel of the day.

Just to add my two cents;

Firstly I was quite disappointed by the production values of the post-debate analysis show. I felt that it would have benefited from a short opening sequence to make it feel more of a program in it's own right. It also didn't help that they kept showing the outside of the building with the projected animations; as fun as they were, it did make the program feel a little disjointed at times. They should have also followed the American model and had a proper set with a desk and a few chairs in the media centre. From my vantage point at home the atmosphere felt quite claustrophobic (a feeling that probably wasn't helped by the poor balance in the cameras). To be honest I don't see why they couldn't have done this, it was their debate and they did everything else in their own style, and as it was they ended up huddled against a wall for quite a long time.

Kay could also have done with a co-presenter (and I'm a Burley fan); I felt that at time she didn't really know what to say or do. In particular this came across with the YouGov poll, where she got the pitch and tone completely wrong in her delivery. It did certainly come across as if they were celebrating a Cameron victory - even I cringed. I'm not convinced of the bias that some others here have been so quick to 'prove' conclusively. I do think that Sky need to be careful about labelling Jeff and others though, stateside it is very clear with terms such as 'contributor', 'panelist' et al, yet in this instance he was introduced as a presenter, which should not have happened.

I realise that Fox is often held up as a bastion of bias but you have to give them credit where credit is due, they do label their on screen talent correctly.

I felt the debate was well produced and the selected questions were much better than ITV's.

I think one key point to take away from this is that it has shown how dire their regular evening programming is. Of course they can not have a debate, or large scale news event every night, but I know of no other news channel that thinks it is acceptable to broadcast a 15 minute news wheel for two hours every evening, whilst constantly plugging their website, mobile site, iPhone and android apps, where I could easily get all of my news in less than 15 minutes. It simply does not make business sense. Even HLN, a channel that owes it's very existence to the newswheel, has all but dropped it.

I've read on other forums that where an identical programme is broadcast on a BBC channel and BBC HD at the same time, the BBC have the option of having BARB include the HD viewings in that of the "main" channel, but choose not to for some reason.

From what I've read, it was Rebecca Wade along with James Murdoch who convinced Rupert that the NI papers should support Cameron, Wade being certain that he would win the election and therefore they should switch to the "winning" side. Apparently Rupert Murdoch, a friend of Gordon and Sarah Brown, took a bit of convincing at first, so Wade is desperate to make sure that what she said comes true, which is apparently why they stormed into the Independent offices to complain about the "Murdoch will not decide the election, you will" adverts they've been running.

Nice to know that this is how our democracy works. I'd like to think that the TV debates are cutting through this a bit and allowing more of the public to decide for themselves. Definitely yesterday morning's anti-Clegg stories smacked of a newspaper industry perplexed to find that it no longer has the influence over public opinion that it used to.

(sorry, veering way off topic!)

^ The ironic thing is Cameron probably would have had the election bagged by now had it not being for these debates which Sky news campaigned for so strongly.