'Jumping from Sky?', The Evening Standard

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

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Jumping from Sky? As satellite news chief Nick Pollard announces his resignation, James Silver asks whether it was last year's poorly received relaunch of the channel that cost him his job.

HE MAY hold the dubious distinction of being the first Sky News chief to leave of his own volition rather than be sacked, but nevertheless Nick Pollard's decision to quit the pioneering rolling TV news station in the summer, after a decade at the helm and "a cupboard full of Baftas and RTS awards", comes at a significant juncture.

It follows the lukewarm critical reaction to Sky News' multimillion-pound October revamp, which saw the channel move to new premises with an overhauled schedule, including Sunrise, hosted Eamonn Holmes, and a nightly international news show fronted by former US state department spokesman James Rubin.

Griping media critics aside, the relaunch has - more importantly - done little to boost the channel's audience figures at a time when arch-rival BBC News 24 nosed ahead in the ratings.

Pollard himself has characterised recent months as "the toughest in Sky News' history", while political editor Adam Boulton has conceded that "there is a general acceptance that not all of the new programme ideas necessarily worked" and that "it's been a difficult few months, there's no point in denying it".

Pollard, 55, flatly refutes the notion that his departure has anything at all to do with the relaunch he masterminded. "My position is that I have been thinking for a while about doing something else and now, just approaching 10 years at Sky, seems absolutely the right moment," he says, speaking for the first time since he made his announcement.

"I don't think anyone who's writing about the media ever misses a chance to have a pop at a relaunch. My view is that nothing is perfect in live continuous broadcasting. There are always things to fix and improve.

"We've moved out of a very small, overcrowded newsroom where there were effectively only three shots you could ever show, which meant that all our programming looked the same, to a new news centre with a much bigger canvas.

"I don't think we've got every single element right. There are definitely things which could be improved, not just in the look of it, but in the way we cover stories. Of course, the problem with saying that is that people will interpret it as: ' Pollard says he got the relaunch wrong.' That's absolutely not what I believe. If you're looking for energy, innovation and enterprise you'll see it on Sky News and not on BBC News 24."

However, separate lines of enquiry at Sky News tease out a somewhat different picture. The relaunch, apparently, has not been met with widespread approval within the organisation.

"Nick's achieved a fantastic amount over the last decade," says one leading Sky News journalist, "but I think it's clear that the schedule we used for the relaunch needs a lot more work. Most of the programmes are not right and arguably they are blunting what Sky News is known for - strong newsgathering.

Since Nick was the person who fashioned those programmes I think probably he felt that if there were going to be radical changes, it would be better if someone else carried them out."

Moreover, rumours - denied by Pollard - persist that Sky News faces a budget squeeze imposed by BSkyB chief executive James Murdoch, himself under pressure to prove he can make a success of the company.

Sky is currently investing heavily in expensive services for subscribers, including high- definition (HD) broadcasting and broadband.

There have also been reports that Sky's [pounds sterling]1.31 billion outlay for its share of Premiership football rights has added to demands for across-the-board belt-tightening.

"I think it's extremely unlikely that we will see a real-terms increase in spending on Sky News this year," says the Sky News source. "That means there will have to be some fairly hard decisions taken. It doesn't necessarily spell cuts or redundancies, but it will mean managing our resources carefully. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that some of the expensive new programming which we introduced in the relaunch will be looked at closely."

Such as? "There are three expensive elements which have been brought in - James Rubin, Eamonn Holmes and [nightly news analysis programme] The Sky Report. If you compare them in terms of cost per hour with everything else, they are massively more expensive. Certainly, if one wanted to summarise the mood of the newsroom and reporters, I think there is a fairly widespread feeling that those are the areas which should bear the brunt of any cuts first."

Sky staffers working on these programmes may be relieved to hear that the axe is apparently not quivering immediately overhead. A senior BSkyB executive points out that the company has substantially increased its investment in Sky News over the past three years. "No individual shows are under threat as we review the budget. We've invested additional money in our newsgathering capability and a limited amount in production, on top of very significant capital investment. Nothing is under threat, but everything is under review."

SIMILARLYthe executive dismisses suggestions that the increased cost for Premiership football rights will have an impact on current budget reviews.

"We are currently going through the budget for 2006- 7. The increased cost of Premier league football won't hit us until our financial year 2007-8."

It is understood that Sky offered Pollard - who will be succeeded on 1 September by executive editor John Ryley - an "emeritus role" within the organisation, perhaps as "president of Sky News, dealing with external business". Although he reportedly declined the job in the belief that it was better for the channel to have "a clean break", Pollard may eventually return in a consultancy role.

In the meantime, Ryley, whom the BBC attempted to poach to run News 24, will most likely return the channel to its core newsgathering and breaking-news strengths, as he seeks to bridge the ratings gap with his betterresourced rival.

In the ferociously competitive rolling news battleground, the stakes could not be higher for a company notoriously intolerant of failure.

(The Evening Standard, May 10th 2006)

Posted by James Silver - On Wednesday, May 10, 2006

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