Alternative to Sky News Radio

I’ve just had a listen to a sample bulletin, and it has a rather international flavour to it. The bulletin focused largely on the Greek economy, with a small piece on London, followed by a report on an explosion in Damascus. The extended bulletin also talked about The Avengers movie in worldwide terms.

Some further examples of this would be that currency is reported in dollars, and the financial markets brief only references the American stock market. The reporters are also mostly American, including the European Correspondent.

Sky News Radio tends to focus on British news and stories, and international stories of national interest. This service, however, actively promotes itself as ‘world news’, which I’m not sure is a priority for any local broadcaster. Overall, I wouldn’t consider it to be a viable alternative.

Certainly in recent days, and it’s not the first time it’s been through periods like this, I’ve been finding the tone of Sky News a little jarring against the output of most community radio stations. It’s odd to hear local chit-chat and pop music followed swiftly by:

“From the Sky News Centre at two! Some BREAKING NEWS this hour! The life support machine of a child injured in a fire in which his five siblings died is to be TURNED OFF LATER TODAY!”

Do we need minute-by-minute updates on a private tragedy which has befallen a family? Is that Breaking News? The general positive attitude of community broadcasting, bringing people together, celebrating what’s great about an area and its people, and then this bulletin that’s pretty much wholly depressing, and then suddenly back to music from Pink and Rihanna.

I think the old IRN was a lot better—they seemed to try and make it as generic as possible, just read the news, rather than shouting sensationally about people having their ‘eyes gouged out’ and things. (That was another one over the weekend.)

If there was a credible, generic alternative to Sky News/IRN, I know I’d go for it, and I suspect there are quite a few people out there who are quietly pissed off at having this nonsense on their stations every hour. I have to run, so I haven’t got time to get into a long post, but why have the national news at all, on community radio?

to be fair everyone was talking about the greek crisis yesterday no matter where they were.

Monday to Friday only? I didn’t know news stopped on Friday evening.

Exactly! No weekend service? No thanks.

The ITN-run service from 2002-2009 did make it more seamless for stations as there was no company identification. It started “It’s 2 O’ Clock, I’m Billy Bollocks” and ended “It’s 3 minutes past 2.”

I must admit I also miss the old 90 second bulletin that was on offer, albeit often tailored to CHR. That would have been great for groups today such as Quidem who in the vein of old-skool ILR opt to use IRN all day every day, tagging a local bully onto the back at peak-time. At the moment they have to put a 75-90s tag on the back of Sky’s 2m bully – meaning once the weather’s added news runs for nearly 4 minutes, when having it on the back of a 90s bully would allow for a 3 minute max. bulletin.

No reason why it couldn’t be recorded at XX:58 and played out automatically on the second channel, negating the need for a second reader.

Just my 2p anyways.

Just wondered but how much apx does Sky News on the hour cost, for a small internet only community radio station ? Is it based on number of listners ?
Thanks

My understanding is that it’s a flat rate of £250 (+VAT) a year for community radio stations.

Ok thanks.

To be honest the price of Sky news for student, hospital, RSL and community stations has gone up and up over the last few years, and I have known more stations to stop using it.. Also know lots of people (including myself) talking about setting up an alternative..

For less than £250 per year though?

I bet your electric bill is probably close to that?!

You get what you pay for. So FSN is only a weekday operation, but it is totally free. I really can’t beleive you could get something in the middle.