Sky News: 2021 Refresh

[JK08]

I'm loving the new music - the best change they've made in years if you ask me. The old stuff was just wallpaper after six years (tbh more like 4 days and it was getting repetitive).

However, the onscreen furniture just seems a little powerpointy to me. Especially when the live bug and vaccine strap are on-screen.

Titles are nice enough though, but i don't get why they've ditched the Westminster skyline from a show that doesn't stop banging on about being the only breakfast show from Westminster.

[Newsroom]

What a load of rubbish. Watched the TOTH and went for a 5 mile run, far more interesting.

[Rdd]

It’s just the same as before really but with a lick of paint basically. New fonts and a bit of refresh to the animations but nothing major. The music has been redone to make it sound a bit grander but actually seems to be very close to the previous arrangement - and of course that melody has been in use since 2003 (hard to believe it was originally very quickly swapped in for the previous theme for legal reasons, it’s become synonymous with the channel in the way no theme since the original Frank Gari theme had).

[fusionlad]

What a load of rubbish. Watched the TOTH and went for a 5 mile run, far more interesting.

if you say so.

[HTV Best]

The FTSE data has now been added over the ticker making the ticker just over half a screen wide. Looks a bit odd.

[Rob]

Please keep your comments on this refresh appropriate. Remember that people who worked on this look may be reading these posts.

Thanks!

[Gibsy]

I think it’s a definite improvement. The negative comments are quite surprising considering it’s a continuation of the last general election graphics which in the main were praised as being brilliant

[Craigwills]

Mixed opinions from me. I think the title card looks good and the bigger straps/ticker work well, logo in the bottom suits nicely. However FTSE/business information is now on screen meaning the ticker is pretty small now, that should have stayed at the top in my opinion.

The vaccine bug is now pretty ugly, too large and pretty boring. I’d just not bother - or maybe there should have been a ticker spanning the whole screen - with then a strap above with logo/time/business and vaccine information & perhaps programme name too (although this maybe too large and take up too much screen).

It’s a very strange decision to remove the rest Westminster backdrop from the weekday breakfast slot, I notice they’ve dropped that line at both TOHs so far; but they’ve kept that going ever since Kay started at breakfast, strange decision that one, although I don’t mind the new breakfast blue. I wonder if Kay returns on Monday wether there’ll be further changes? I’m not overall a fan of weekdays and weekends being branded the same when they’re actually pretty different formats; just share a time of day.

It’ll be interesting to see what they do at 2pm today as that now stands out as the only slot now - except overnights - that isn’t branded right now, with Sarah-Jane Mee away.

[VMPhil]

I think it’s a definite improvement. The negative comments are quite surprising considering it’s a continuation of the last general election graphics which in the main were praised as being brilliant

Probably because people were (rightly or wrongly) getting their hopes up for a big revamp, especially as it’s been so delayed, when this is more like a refresh of the existing graphics.

[Neil Jones]

I think it’s a definite improvement. The negative comments are quite surprising considering it’s a continuation of the last general election graphics which in the main were praised as being brilliant

Probably because people were (rightly or wrongly) getting their hopes up for a big revamp, especially as it’s been so delayed, when this is more like a refresh of the existing graphics.

Some people wouldn't be happy even if they demolished the glass box on air with a bulldozer. The days of "big" revamps are probably not over as such but the trend is usually evolution not revolution, so anything big will get kicked down the line.

[AaronLancs]

I think it’s a definite improvement. The negative comments are quite surprising considering it’s a continuation of the last general election graphics which in the main were praised as being brilliant

Probably because people were (rightly or wrongly) getting their hopes up for a big revamp, especially as it’s been so delayed, when this is more like a refresh of the existing graphics.

Also, thinking about it, If this refresh was premiered at the General Election. The impact would have been far more better and "wow". But I kind of getting where people are coming up with the bigging stuff up beyond its worth.

[damian]

Ticket seems way too high the backgrounds are awful as is the condensed font

[brioalex]

On the whole it’s a nice update to the existing graphics package. These graphics weren’t going to be evolutionary, it was more about bringing them in-line with the wider Sky graphics refresh that has been seen across other channels.

Most of the changes have been influenced by the increasing amount of people watching Sky News on phones and smart displays such as Amazon Echo’s etc all of which are smaller than your average TV. The sentence case ticker is a great change to make it easier to read at smaller sizes.

[JayTV]

I think this refresh is more of an improvement than not. I really love the use of sentence case, especially on the ticker. The Sky font, for me, works much better in sentence case than capitals. The readability is much better, especially when watching on a mobile phone (which I suppose is the justification for making the graphics bigger overall).

I also love the music - yes, it's not as grand as themes of the past, and it is a pretty short loop, but it is SO much better than what we've had since 2015, which has always felt like a leftover theme which had been edited and cut to within an inch of its life!

Couple of drawbacks for me: I don't really like the condensed font at all. I don't think it's necessary and it clashes too much with the other font in use, IMO. I'd prefer if it was just the original Sky font. I also think it would look much better if the headline part of the strap (the red part on the left) only went as far as where the logo/clock ends. This would make the ticker and straps line up more, for a neater finish.

On the studio side, it's a shame they've replaced the Westminster backdrop (which has improved recently) with a boring blue background.

[KOWT76]

Would have been nice to have the v/o return at TOTH