Sky News UK

Yeah I don’t get this either. (Gareth Barlow will be hosting from 6-7am and again from 10am-1pm. It’ll be a long day for him!)

Just call it one-hour preshow and three-hour postshow. Much easier.

And the official branding.

Geez, I wonder where they get the color palette from.

Adam Boulton also chimed in on X: “Fridge for short?”

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The colour scheme figures… for the last few years Sky have seemingly been obsessed with copying the BBC:

  • BBC had a show called Breakfast… so Sky introduced a show called Breakfast.
  • BBC switched from two line supers to one… so Sky did the same.
  • BBC introduced that horrible trick of pushing the presenter to the side of the screen to show footage… so Sky started doing it as well.
  • BBC introduced a breakfiller with headlines and a QR code… so Sky introduced a breakfiller with headlines and a QR code.
  • BBC started using a sidebar… so Sky copied that as well. (I actually think the sidebar could work, but they need to decide between that and a ticker. No need for both.)

I don’t know why Sky think copying BBC News is the way to go, as the latter is abysmal these days… but I guess Sky think that (dry and unwatchable, IMO) style of news is what viewers want. They have no idea.

To be fair to Sky, I do think pairing Ridge and Frost up is a great idea. I just don’t really understand the other changes. (There are apparently also changes planned for the evening - watch this space, I guess.)

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Well, because

so

Pretty easy to explain that one. I don’t know what they were thinking with that.

At least Sky sidebar sometimes adds value, unlike BBC.

I absolutely think it is a great pairing. The execution has been terrible to say the least, though.

Evening changes pretty much foregone conclusion given Sophy going away from there. To start with, Politics Hub is axed - no replacement on that.

Let’s see what other tweaks they can do.

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Are you sure about that? A guy on Pres Cafe who works for Sky hinted that it’s not being axed. So it must be staying but with another presenter (probably Darren McCaffrey, who’s been doing that show the last few weeks anyway).

I think the evening changes might relate to the 8pm slot (The UK Tonight) which is pretty lacklustre, both in content (IMO) and ratings. Don’t think Yalda Hakim’s show will go anywhere as she was Sky’s prestige hire a couple of years ago.

Twitter handle for Politics Hub changed to the new breakfast show earlier in the day.

For the record, it’s just SkyPoliticsHub with no mention of Sophy. It’s generic enough to stand on its own.

Are you really going to update the handle of a show and then relaunch said show and make a new account for it? Is that worth the hassle?

I don’t want to put more fuel to the fire, but the smoke has been there all along.

Yeah I saw all that but the guy from Sky was pretty adamant it’s not being axed. I guess the plan might just be to ‘rest’ it… and never bring it back.

Wilfred said in their preview piece yesterday that they’re also moving the show “next door” into the proper studio, so we have that to look forward to.

Ever since Kay Burley retired, the show has taken a noticeably different tone with a deeper plunge into UK politics and little else. Wilf on his own is pretty boring, though he was good when he was paired with Sara Eisen when he was on CNBC. Maybe he and Sophy will have a similar dynamic.

I do miss the days though of when the news content of Breakfast was much more well-rounded during the Burley days.

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Yeah, he seems like one of those anchors who just needs someone to bounce off of. Much like Max Foster over at CNNI.

Are they making any changes to the main Westminster studio? I’d quite like them to bring the desk forward, so the anchors aren’t pushed up against the screen, and for the backdrops to have more depth (currently they’re too crisp so it just looks like the anchors are sat in front of a cheap photograph).

Hope they use a couch instead

He told Sophy in a somewhat lighthearted way that he wants a taller desk so that he doesn’t look so large, so I guess we can count on that.

I’ll be interested to see whether Gareth does his hours from Westminster or from HQ. I honestly think he’s been a bit underrated and sidelined in this whole thing, and I’m glad to see he’s not getting lost in the shuffle too much.

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Yeah, it’s quite strange how he’s been moved around the schedule so much in the two years he’s been there. I’m not sure about him doing four hours solo on a split shift, though. I don’t think that will last very long. I think I would have had him doing maybe 5-7am as a sort of pre-show to the main event. But Sky clearly have a lot of confidence in him to be doing what they are.

No idea what kind of technology exists to be able to output this.

1080p video feed with 120p timestamp insert graphic.

You can still read what it says, FWIW.

1 day to go for the new breakfast pair - with all the diamond imagery around the show, they opted for a round desk:

Pub-like unscripted conversation is the vibe they’re going for too.

Waiting until now to post this because I was wary of any late updates. Still not one yet.

We’re really going for this schedule.


(Edited for clarity of course, hell will freeze over before the schedule is presented this neatly)


While we are at it, somewhat unintentionally the new morning show will go head-to-head with the FTA evening offerings.

For a limited time only.

Just to clear up a couple of things: Sophy will not be hosting Politics Hub. No official announcements have been named but I suspect it’ll be Darren McCaffrey, who has been filling in the last few weeks.

No idea why the 9pm show (The World) isn’t on the schedule. I suspect that’s just a mistake.

It’s off air Monday and back Tuesday.

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what?

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I think what @News727 means is that Sky’s new breakfast show will be on at the same time as the evening news on ABC, 7 and 9, etc. (6-10am GMT is 5-9pm AEDT).

Yes, I was having “7am there is 6pm AEDT” in mind.

Of course it moves back to 5pm in summer.

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