With Sky News just having celebrated its tenth birthday, the sleepy
heads of the British broadcasting establishment have finally woken up to
what is going on.
ITN has announced that it is to start its own 24-hour UK news channel,
following in the footsteps of the BBC, which did so two years ago.
Broadcasters have realised that television news is no longer something
that people will sit and watch at an appointed time - they want to be
able to access it whenever they choose and they want continuous live
coverage of major events.
That Sky’s 24-hour continuous news channel should have provoked ITN and
the BBC to launch their own says a lot about Rupert Murdoch’s ability to
back a winning idea and the quality of the channel his organisation
produced.
When Sky News started there was no certainty - least of all at the
established channels - that the idea was a good one. Murdoch wanted to
copy Ted Turner’s success with CNN in the US, but the UK was an untested
market.
For ITN’s launch in January, the risk is less than it was for Sky. The
channel will have the luxury of millions of multi-channel homes to
target - a ready-made market built largely by BSkyB. On the other hand,
it will be joining a market which is already crowded.
Not only will there be three continuous news channels focusing on the
UK, but there will also be competition from the begetter of them all -
CNN International.
In addition, there is also the international Euronews service, which is
available with an English language soundtrack, and the business news
service, CNBC.
ITN sees its news service as a logical extension of its current
operations - one that will generate extra revenue while drawing on some
of its existing resources. The company intends to use well-known faces
such as Julia Somerville as anchors, and to draw on the core news
operation which supports the company’s existing news services for ITV,
Channel 4 and Channel 5.
Distribution across all three digital platforms (direct-to-home
satellite, cable and terrestrial) will ensure a significant pool from
which to attract viewers.
The proliferation of news services is good news for PR agencies with an
eye for a visual story. While a large amount of transmission time is
taken up with re-packaged versions of the same top stories, these
channels also broadcast softer feature material which use video news
releases (VNRs).
SKY NEWS
By Simon Cole
Position: managing editor
Weekly reach: 4.5 million from satellite and cable distribution
’Our audience is Daily Mail readers crossed with Daily Telegraph
readers. It is a ’dip in and dip out’ kind of service - this is why we
have the concept of rolling news with headlines every 15 minutes. It is
not designed for hours of viewing on end - we just keep updating and
refreshing the top stories. ITN is coming into a market which is pretty
crowded.
I think they are going to find it a culture shock. When you start a
24-hour news service you are on a rollercoaster you cannot get off
Doing 24-hour news is like running a marathon not a sprint - it takes
difficult resource management.
’As for the influence of PR agencies on the channel, there was a time
when we banned VNRs, but now we judge them on merit. We do not use
interviews from VNRs, but if someone has sent a camera crew to Rio we
may use the story, but with our own spin. We will put different
interviews in. VNRs that are more likely to get on the screen are those
with a green agenda, or animal stories - something where there is not a
commercial motive.
’What I would say to a PRO is that if you are good at your job, your
product will get on. Look at arch spinners like Alastair Campbell - we
are well aware that we are being spun, but if the story is good we will
go with it.’
BBC NEWS 24
By Tim Orchard
Position: controller TV news channels
Weekly reach: 5.5 million across all platforms including terrestrial
carriage
’We started BBC News 24 two years ago because we knew that in the
multi-channel world the number of people watching terrestrial news would
fall. The fact that ITN is now doing a service strengthens the BBC’s
case for having one. The BBC has the biggest network of bureaux in the
world, so we had the advantage that we were not starting from
scratch.
’Six million people a week now watch our service, if you include the
late-night terrestrial carriage. They use a 24-hour news channel in a
different way from terrestrial bulletins. We built our hour-long ’news
wheel’, as it is called, to accommodate this. In the first half-hour you
get a pacy, bulletin-style service, including one minute of sport, one
minute of business and two minutes of weather. In the second half-hour,
we do more sport and features, but they are pretty clearly tied to our
news agenda.
’Our point of difference is not the structure, but our journalists. If
John Simpson is filming in Belgrade for the Nine O’Clock News, for
example, we can use him on News 24 - it is a substantial point of
difference. We do use PR material like VNRs occasionally, but under
strictly controlled circumstances and we would always label them.’
CNN INTERNATIONAL
By Chris Cramer
Position: president
Weekly reach: 6.4 million viewers weekly across Europe
’CNN International, our global service, attracts a blue-chip demographic
- an affluent, predominantly male audience. They are late-30s up, maybe
business travellers, decision-makers, movers and shakers,
middle-to-senior management.
’Unlike the other UK 24-hour news services we are international, but we
are competing with local services for the same eyeballs. Partly because
of this we regionalised our service in 1997 and the UK now gets a
Europe-focused service whereas before CNN International was the same all
over the world. We produce 40 hours a week out of London and Berlin, but
we still think of ourselves as an international service with European
content.
The perception of CNNI is that it is US-centric, but while that may have
been the case once, it is not now. We transmit less than ten per cent of
made-for-US programming - more than 90 per cent is made for the
international audience.
’We have also put on other kinds of programming to give the audience
other reasons to watch - art, literature, music, current affairs,
business and documentaries. We are not great consumers of VNRs, but we
are not religious about avoiding them - some stuff is used for general
library material.’
