Separate from Prime News - this was a half-hour that filled in at 6pm Sydney/Melb time (8pm NZ) - keeping in mind this were the days where Seven and Nine combined had a majority share (being split three equal ways with News Ltd the other part), so they didn’t want competition with their own 6pm shows (before this, Sky AU used to take a full hour of Sky UK rather than the usual bottom-of-the-hour).
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And Sky News could pretend to NZ viewers that it was a ‘New Zealand’ news channel. Would also have been competing against News at 8 on TVNZ7 (RIP).
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Yep, they did indeed call it “Sky News NZ” over there, with the map of Australia in their logo at the time replaced by the letters “NZ”. And yeah, definitely went head-to-head with TVNZ 7’s news, although it pre-dated the latter by about a year (March 2007) - something Sky NZ (um… I mean the pay TV operator here) would’ve known as TVNZ 6 and 7 were certainly on the horizon.
Of course, until they saw the ratings and stuff; Wikipedia points to a contemporary NZ Herald article that stated that the premiere bulletin drew an average of 1,500. Not like they promoted it or anything, right? 
They knew what they were getting though if they’d ever watched the Prime 5.30 news (which had been about 3 years old by then), besides Sky News making an effort to not present it out of Sydney or wherever.
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Sky News theme music from that era was an absolute banger though
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It’s been on there for months.
100%! Never been bettered.
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Sky News NZ definitely used to take the London feed, at least between 8-8.30. I think Evening News NZ might have aired after?
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The clock on that closer had 2027hrs NZ time.
That recording is from the Australian feed. Pretty sure NZ used to take Sky UK at that time.
(From May 2007 - look for the Sky News NZ ident at the start)
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very fox news style era, a far cry from the dead boring Sky News UK these days
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100%! The journalism is excellent - in those terms, it’s easily the best news channel in the UK - but the presentation really lets it down. Hopefully they might start to jazz it up again now that new people are in charge.
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Yeah, probably a good find to disprove that. Found another Herald article that said it ran at 7pm NZ time there, trying not to program against One and TV3 obviously.
Pretty sure that was the same plan when they made the flagship Sky Evening News over here (with Michael Willesee), that they ran at at an off time (probably 6.30, I’m definitely not going to claim memory of that one) and 6pm AEST was a Sky UK half hour.
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That sounds about right. 6pm NZ time was definitely a standard Sky Australia bulletin. I think Sky News NZ might have shown the NZ Evening News again at some point (maybe 8.30?) but don’t quote me on that… it’s been many years! I know at some point they ditched it and just repeated Prime News instead.
EDIT: Here we are. As reported by The Herald:
The re-packaged version of the bulletin will be screened at 8.30pm and 9pm, allowing the network to follow developing news stories.
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Lol so the bulletin wasn’t live, aired after it aired in Australia and repeated one half hour after another. How mickey mouse can you get…
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Sky News UK is focused on factual news and information with rolling bulletins for much of the day. This is a strength for those seeking the latest news, not entertainment and opinion.
Consuming news from many sources is beneficial in forming an accurate view of events.
Politics based opinion and entertainment shows on Sky News Australia, Fox News, msnbc and NewsMax have their place and are very popular ofcourse.
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Thanks for the essay. I’m not referring to content but presentation. It’s shot against a screen or in a box in an empty lobby most of the time. It’s very boring to look at and so automated it doesn’t do anything interesting.
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Sky Weather has added an extra left-side three day forecast ticker, covering the larger population centres across the country. The old lower forecast ticker covering more (and smaller) towns remains. And like that one it stays up during commercials, but commercials sit lower on screen than the weather program (which sits above a strap which isn’t present during commercial) so there’s a strip of wasted screen space at top of frame during commercials.
Edit: clarified that last sentence
Forecasts transition with an upward slide movement.
The order of towns is interesting. It goes state-by-state (and territory) and by alphabetical order of towns within each state and territory. The state order goes down the east (QLD, NSW, ACT, VIC, TAS) then up the middle (SA, NT) and then WA.
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This is how crazy Paul Murray has turned, this is him on his original Sky News show “180”.
You could say he did a…180…
I’ll see myself out.
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The red lights on the on TVs are confusing me 