• Sky News Ireland to simulcast on Sky One

    Digital Spy has a short piece on the decision by BSkyB to drop the Malcom in the Middle from its daily 6:30 slot on Sky One and replace it with Sky News Ireland which will broadcast alongside itself on Sky News.
    There has been nothing but negative rumours floating around about Sky News Ireland since it launched a year and a half ago. Naturally, Sky have been quick to dampen any suggestions that the venture was a financial disaster but this move seems to be more of a desperate scramble than a wise capitalisation of a market.
    In Ireland anyone who has Sky One also has Sky News, and so would already have a choice between the two. This move effectively turns regular Sky One viewers away from the station for a half hour and runs the risk of not getting them back.
    In October gone Sky News, and thus Sky News Ireland, underwent a revamp with a higher focus on non-news programming such as Eamon Holmes breakfast show Sunrise and Lunchtime Live which focuses on human interest pieces and in studio interviews. The Sky News Ireland bulliten was pushed back to the 6:30 slot, almost certainly as an attempt to poach viewers from TV3 and to a much lesser extent RTÉ One.
    The 24 hour news battle has been rather intense in the last year, with ITV News being the major casualty of 2005. BBC News has taken advantage of the feature-driven move by Sky News and has given more focus to Breaking News, something it had in the past encouraged against for fear of misinforming the public.