Sky News gets unfavourable response to new look

[BGonaSTICK]

Sky News's new onscreen graphics have come in for a critical drubbing from viewers.

The response to a posting by the Sky News viewers' editor, Paul Bromley, about the new graphics on the Live Talkback Forum has been overwhelmingly negative.

Viewers variously describe the new look as awful, silly, a mess, intensely irritating and disgusting, and compare it unfavourably to Fox News's onscreen graphics.

Sky News introduced a new look on Sunday evening for its "lower third graphics" - the scrolling breaking news ticker across the bottom of the screen, plus the channel logo, time clock and title strap that appear immediately above it.

Viewers were particularly critical of the new yellow-and-black colour scheme for the breaking-news ticker.

"Why fix it if it wasn't broken in the first place? Did you get some green media student to play with the new graphics? Bring back the old style, and quick!" wrote Mike Taylor.

Rob from Bromsgrove added: "I feel like I'm being shouted at now with the new font being used. The spinning logo is Fox News all over. The yellow-and-black breaking-news ticker is silly, especially when you revert to red and white when the presenters announce it.

"I always said when Sky News became Fox News UK I would switch off - guess I will watch your rivals now."

Rishi in London thought the new graphics looked "absolutely disgusting". He said: "Who thought it would be a good idea to have that vile yellow continuously running across our screen?

"Bring back the previous layout which was smart, modern looking and not so 'in your face'."

But a small number of posters on the Live Talkback Forum praised the new look, with Chris Nevard describing it as "much cleaner".

Online poster Khalid said: "I have to say that the change in graphics are indeed a warm and welcome addition to what is already a worldclass news channel from Sky."

Some posters on the Live Talkback Forum also complained they were about to lose Sky News, because they get it via Virgin Media's cable TV service.

Sky News is due to be dropped by Virgin Media from Thursday, March 1, along with other Sky channels, following a dispute between the cable operator and BSkyB over a new carriage deal.

In the autumn of 2005, Sky News had a major revamp, with more scheduled programming and less rolling news, which flopped and led to the departure of the head of news, Nick Pollard. The changes have almost all since disappeared.

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Hmm, the week hasn't started well for poor old Mr. Murdoch :roflmao: