Analysis of a live news item.

Sky Sports News - Transfer Deadline day.

Story:

• The show starts with a brief introduction from the show's hosts Jim White and Hayley McQueen who we're joined in the studios by Sam Allardyce and Allen Smith both well-known names in football. 
• We then cut to another reporter who is telling us a story about how there has been some late drama in the transfer window relating to English club Chelsea FC, Behind this reporter are a load of different screens relating to the show. However, one changes to a reporter on location, this then helps the show flow in and out of the studio to other reporters around the country and even the world (depending on what the story is).
• Once we see the reporter on the screen behind we then cut to where he is. So, in this case, they took us to Chelsea's football ground (Stamford Bridge) where the reporter then begins to inform us that another London club Crystal Palace wants to loan out a Chelsea player on a season-long loan. 
• After the reporter finished what he had to say we went back to the studios. However, we weren't at the studios for long as they then went sent us to another reporter this time outside Selhurst Park talking about how the club Crystal Palace are the most likely to sign a well-known player who would've hopefully helped the team go from fighting relegation to a secure middle table team.
• Once the reporter had finished we then went back to the studios were one of the presenters tries and gets the audience more involved with a short poll regarding whether it would a good move for the player to go to a bottom of the league club.
• Suddenly we are shown "breaking new" then it's a transition to the two main presenters with their guests where they tell us where the breaking news is coming from.
• We're then sent away to another London club Fulham and what they're up to in the transfer window.

When watching this show I came to an understanding that this was not just one big story they were trying to tell. During the transfer window, every club has its own journey, and a story to tell whether it be a player has left or joined.

With this being the final hour of the winter transfer window the crew, presenters, and reporters are all rush off their feet trying to unravel the story of who's going where? By doing this they are constantly shifting from inside the studios to out on location. In this specific show, they had a huge timer counting down from one hour. This was done to help the crew know their timings for the show, also it adds the tension to the show as we slowly get closer to the deadline. For sports fans this can make or break for their clubs so when they're watching this it can be very intense because you just never know whos going where until it's done.

The way the presenter tells the story very quickly compared to other news shows, however, we know that because they have an hour to tell us everything they're going to be quick. Also, this could be really off-putting for someone who doesn't know a lot about sports and could easily make them change over to another show.

After closely looking and analysing how they present their stories it is safe to say that when it comes to telling the story we would want a more personal approach by constantly trying to get the audience engaged by doing small polls during the show by using graphics. Doing this would help be a talking point for the audience as they would discuss the questions we set out for them to answer.

Casting: 

Main presenters: Jim White and Hayley Mcqueen
Celebrity guest: Sam Allardyce and Alan Smith
Reporters: Kaveh Solhekol, Micheal Bridge, Jamie Weir, and Fraser Dainton.

Altogether there are 9 people involved in the first thirty minutes of the show as they all give us a little bit more information than the last. However, they don't all talk about one main story each reporter has their own story relating to where they are. For example, Kaveh Solhekol is the first reporter we see and he's at Stamford Bridge so he was informing us about Chelsea, it would not have made sense if he was talking about Manchester United. On the other hand, all reporters spoke with enthusiasm and passion toward the subject matter. Therefore, making it more compelling to watch as they are giving the story more emotion.

Having two celebrity guests is similar to us finding an expert to talk to. they are both there to try and help the audience fully understand why a team may or may not have gone for a player. Sam Allardyce was the former England national team and West Ham United manager, thus meaning that he would know a lot about the pressure for certain teams to snatch up potential players. Whereas with Alan Smith he would have a different view about the transfer window because he's a former player. With players, it can all change in a matter of hours. Having both of these different personalities on the show gives it richer debates.

Graphics:

• Use a lot of yellow and Black.
• Big bold writing
• When we're introduced to someone.

Fig 1 

Sky Sports have always had hundreds of graphics the roam along with the screen. However, when it is transfer deadline day they get rid of most of the graphic, they no longer have the bottom constantly going and on-screen right there is normally every type of sporting league shown in figure 1.

On transfer deadline day they try and go for a more minimalistic approach by only having certain graphics so that the audience won't get confused. This is because deadline day can get very confusing as it can all change in a blink. One thing I did notice is that they change the colour palette for the show by having yellow and black rather than the standard red and blue. The reason they have been doing this is that one day the main presenter Jim White was wearing a yellow tie and the show's producers loved it and from there on every deadline day show the presenters would wear some form of yellow. So how does this link to the graphics? As shown in figure 2 and 3 we can see the contrast between black and yellow really help it stand out. So when it does say 'breaking news' we instantly know it's going to be a big-money signing.

Location:

• Sky Sports Studios
• Stamford Bridge (Home of Chelsea FC)
• Selhurst Park (Home of Crystal Palace FC)
• Fulham Training Ground 
• Everton Training Ground
• Tottenham Training Ground
• Turf Moor (Home of Burnley FC)
• King Power Stadium (Home of Leicester FC)

Sky Sports news is always out on location during their show as they feel the need to take us (the audience) to different clubs around the country especially on transfer deadline day. The reasoning why they send reporters to all these different clubs is so that when the club releases news they're first on the scene to know. Also in some cases, the reporter would see a player arrive at the club which sometimes confirms the player's transfer to another club. As you can see in the top corner of both images it tells everyone where the reporters are.

Figure 3 

Figure 4

Having reporters out on scene helps the show be able to link segments together, for example in this specific deadline day we originally go to Stamford Bridge where they talk about one of the Chelsea players are likely to go out on loan to another London club, Crystal Palace. After the reporter at Stamford Bridge was done and we heard the Chelsea side of the story we then to Sulherst Park the home of Crystal Palace. This is done so that we get both sides of the story, from the crystal palace perspective this was going to be huge for their club as this could've helped them get out of the relegation battle to maybe a secure mid-table team. However, this was not the case for Chelsea as they bought this player for a lot of money, but he hasn't been able to provide the service everyone was hoping he would. As you can see they have clearly thought hard about how they're using the locations they choose. Every location they used somehow related to the story of who's going to what club, this made it really easy to follow and for a sports fan they would instantly know what team they're talking about.

Therefore, when it comes to our production finding locations relating to our story is a must, we need to look into experts that relate to the story we are telling. To do this we need to look into organisations that work closely with CBD so we can easily be able to link segment A (package) to segment B (the live piece).

Conclusion:

Overall, this analysis has really helped me understand how all these aspects would potentially work in live news. Looking deeply into the techniques they've used to provide their show has given me some insight into how we should make our news show. I know that ours is going to be very different from Sky Sports, however, we can use the way they present their stories by having formal conversations with interviewees, but also having fun whilst out on location so that our audience know that we can have fun whilst also being serious when needed.


Harvard References

The final hour of Transfer Deadline Day! | LIVE (2019) [user-generated content online] Sky Sports Football. 31 January 2019. At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnmoREAq4Hw (Accessed on 20 October 2019)