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The new-look Sky News

Posted on Sunday, February 25th, 2007 at 11:25pm. #

It’s not really to my liking. Looks like a cheap crappy Fox News.

Particularly hateful: the Sky News logo, which twirls pointlessly (like Fox News); the time which also turns into the date pointlessly (like Fox News); but none of the subtle gradients and moving stuff of Fox News. It’s the Worst Thing Ever.

Not yet seen the top-of-hour sequence yet; it’s got to beat their old ‘drop the dead donkey’ sequence to be the most awful ever, so I suspect it won’t be too bad.

5 comments

Adam Bowie said at February 26th, 2007 at 12:49pm

I really don’t like the time turning into the date either. One of the reasons you leave screens tuned to these channels in places like receptions and public areas is that they operate as quasi-clocks. Now you have to wait for the date to change back.

And the revolving block is stupid too. It’s just yet more screen candy to seemingly distract you from what the reporters/presenters are actually saying.

Still with Sky News supposedly coming off Freeview and now Virgin Media, there’ll be far fewer chances to see this anyway!

James Cridland said at February 27th, 2007 at 10:50am

Oh dear. Looks like I’m not alone.

Media Guardian reports that people hate the new Sky News; and you certainly don’t want to go and read the Sky News blog…

Tony Moorey said at February 27th, 2007 at 12:58pm

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Now black and yellow, the breaking news ‘crawls’ along the bottom look so urgent that they resemble a mix of those ‘Police line - do not cross’ ribbons with some sort of severe weather warning.

News 24’s recent refresh is a little more sober, but seems a clunky attempt to appear more live and dynamic. Particularly annoying are their crawls, as the headlines are written so long-windedly that to read a single story, you have to wait while two screen’s worth of text scrolls across. Almost as irritating as waiting for the programme details to appear on a DAB display.

By far the most elegant screen furniture (apologies for the use of that hideous term) can be found on CNN - and who would have thought that? Astons that only occupy the amount of space needed by the information they hold and instead of crawls, headlines that pop up one at a time and can be read at a single glance. Shame the programming doesn’t match up.

Andrew Bailey said at February 27th, 2007 at 2:29pm

In nature, creatures such as wasps and snakes can often be found with yellow and black colouring.

Animals universally recognise this as a warning signal to “stay away”.

And that, my friends, is exactly what I’ll be doing unless Sky get rid of that vile scrolling news bar.

Thomas Baxter said at March 1st, 2007 at 10:11am

I must be one of the only people to like the new look - its a hell of a lot better then what Sky News Australia is! :)

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