Sky News Today

Infobox Television
show_name = Sky News Today


caption = Sky News Today with Dermot Murnaghan
format =
camera =
picture_format = 16:9 (UK)
4:3 (International)
runtime = 4 hours
creator = Sky News
developer =
executive_producer =
starring = Dermot Murnaghan
narrated =
opentheme =
endtheme =
country = UK - Broadcast Internationally
network = Sky News
first_aired = 2002
last_aired =
num_episodes =
imdb_id =
tv_com_id =

Sky News Today is a programme on Sky News which currently runs between 9:00am and 1:00pm and is presented by Dermot Murnaghan with news summaries read by various presenters. Emma Crosby used to present the summaries however, she has since taken up the post of business presenter at Sky.

Overview

Launched by Sky News in 1998, Sky News Today ran from 12-2 pm every weekday afternoon. The lack of differentiation in terms of content and tone however, meant that there was no clear focus to the segment in a way that there later would be.

After being dropped in the autumn of 2001 as the channel shifted to more rolling output the program was resurected in 2002, presented by Martin Stanford and Julie Etchingham between 10:00am and 1:00pm. The show remained like this until, in 2005, when Sky News underwent a major relaunch, and a second 'shift' was established to run between 2:00pm and 5:00pm in addition to the morning shift which now ran between 9:00am and 12:00pm. At this time, the show was presented by three presenters simultaneously.

In 2006 several changes were made to the format and an increasingly large amount of time was spent at the news desk rather than presenting the show from different locations around the Sky News Centre.

In October 2007, Sky made the move to single headed presentation with Julie Etchingham becoming the anchor of what was branded on press releases as 'Sky Today' however on air it is referred to as 'Sky News Today'. News summaries are presented by Colin Brazier.

From Tuesday 8th January 2008, former BBC Breakfast anchor Dermot Murnaghan replaced Julie Etchingham as main presenter of the show. Likewise Emma Crosby took over the news summaries from Colin Brazier who moved to Afternoon Live to work alongside Kay Burley. Etchingham moved to ITV News to present the relaunched News at Ten with Sir Trevor McDonald and team. [citeweb | url=http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2196955,00.html | title=Etchingham to leave Sky News | accessdate=2007-10-22 | publisher=Guardian Online]

It should be noted that whilst press releases have suggested that Emma and Colin were to switch places, both have yet to consistently present the summaries in their new slots. There appears to be no set presenter to do the headline segments for this slot at this time.

Dermot does not present on Fridays and the program is just called, Sky Today

Presenter history

Morning shift

Afternoon shift

Before 2005 the 1-5pm shift on Sky News was not referred to on air or in any schedule as 'Sky News Today'. It has therefore been omitted from the table.

By late Summer 2007, Sky News Today in the afternoon was often only presented by Julie Etchingham, Colin Brazier often covered other areas of programming, becoming the chief relief presenter for Live at 5. This led many to pre-empt the schedule change of October 2007 which left all news single headed.

References