Sky News: 2021 Refresh

[Brekkie]

Surprised no one here has mentioned this - Adam Boulton predicts that Sky News' days might be numbered:

“I know there are executives at Sky that take the view there will only be one news channel in the UK in 10 years’ time and it probably won’t be Sky ... Any corporation is going to ask, ‘What’s the point of Sky News? Is everything it’s offering being done by others anyway so we might as well not bother?’ Colleagues at Sky News think about it all the time. It’s existential.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/j...its-change

To be fair Sky News's days have pretty much been numbered ever since it launched over 30 years ago.

What is surprising given what we've seen in the US is how there has been no moves at all over here into the streaming market which you'd imagine would be the step taken before closing a linear offering completely. Indeed in the US it feels like the streamers are potentially getting to the point where their online offering is so strong they could go linear with it.

[Mouseboy33]

I thought this quote from that Guardian Adam Boulton was interesting and telling.

When Rupert Murdoch sold the wider Sky business to the US media conglomerate Comcast in 2018, the new owners promised to fund the prestigious but lossmaking news service for a decade. Boulton, who left the channel last month after serving as editor-at-large, said Comcast had honoured the deal but the channel’s long-term future was unclear: “People are wondering what’s going to happen when the guaranteed funding under the takeover deal expires … the problem with the takeover arrangement was it put Sky News in aspic with the same funding and the same management.”

It will be interesting to see what SkyNews looks like when Comcast/NBC steps into the take over the channel from the management that have changed the voice of the boisterous pacey breaking news channel into a whispery old man. If the channel survives.

[Luc]

I don't think Adam's saying anything that surprising? The moment Comcast only guaranteed funding for a certain time period put a countdown clock on the lifespan of the channel and kind of stopped them doing anything revolutionary.

Interesting they've decided to put discussion programmes on in the evening. Like it or not that's clearly a nod to GB News. Anna still has News at 10 and the highly rated Press Preview.

[Toby brown]

Sky news reporter michelle Clifford is the latest to leave the channel

[valley]

Sky news reporter michelle Clifford is the latest to leave the channel

Can’t see any mention of this anywhere?

Edit: Never mind, I didn’t check Twitter closely enough apparently.

https://twitter.com/SophGarratt/status/1...7852915713

[Gibsy]

What is going on behind the scenes? Yet another departure!

[valley]

The bad weather hitting close to home for Sky Sports’ Keith Downie… who was on Sky News earlier as a result.

https://twitter.com/SkySports_Keith/stat...8572635136

[soupie]

I don't think Adam's saying anything that surprising? The moment Comcast only guaranteed funding for a certain time period put a countdown clock on the lifespan of the channel and kind of stopped them doing anything revolutionary. :lol:

Interesting they've decided to put discussion programmes on in the evening. Like it or not that's clearly a nod to GB News. Anna still has News at 10 and the highly rated Press Preview.

highly-rated by who? :lol: BBC News Channel reigns supreme with The Papers last time I looked, and even Dan Wootton has been often beating Sky in the last fortnight or so. The problem for Sky is there’s a lot of paper reviews now (who would bet against Talk TV doing the same), so their offering feels extremely tired now.

[Gibsy]

I don't think Adam's saying anything that surprising? The moment Comcast only guaranteed funding for a certain time period put a countdown clock on the lifespan of the channel and kind of stopped them doing anything revolutionary. :lol:

Interesting they've decided to put discussion programmes on in the evening. Like it or not that's clearly a nod to GB News. Anna still has News at 10 and the highly rated Press Preview.

highly-rated by who? :lol: BBC News Channel reigns supreme with The Papers last time I looked, and even Dan Wootton has been often beating Sky in the last fortnight or so. The problem for Sky is there’s a lot of paper reviews now (who would bet against Talk TV doing the same), so their offering feels extremely tired now.

I think we can take what Wootton says with a pinch of salt. The last full week that both organisations released figures (although a new list will be published today) show Sky News paper reviews having 151,000 viewers and Wootton having 47,000

[derek500j]

Sky News report their Press Preview times from the programme start at approx 10.36pm, not for the full ad laden slot. Wootton's are a straight through 120m slot. Slot averages are a difficult comparison.

[soupie]

Dan Wootton at 9pm beat Sky on Monday and Wednesday last week. I can’t post the figures but approaching 150,000 viewers

[Gibsy]

Looks like both Sky News & BBC News have separate helicopters above Westminster at the moment - GTVHD & GINTV.

[Fanoftv]

It’s the first time that I’ve used the sky news app to stream live in a while, how long have they had a bespoke portrait feed?

[valley]

It’s the first time that I’ve used the sky news app to stream live in a while, how long have they had a bespoke portrait feed?

I've not seen that before and I was watching at the same time via the app - perhaps they are doing some A/B testing to look at whether a vertical format increases engagement?

[Fanoftv]

The bar next to the clock displays a message saying that you can email to communicate thoughts on the vertical layout.