BBC vs. Sky News

As a communications study abroad program visiting the British Broadcasting Center (BBC) and Sky News is essential. Although these are two different broadcasting centers in London, England, they are both very important and well-known to our world.

These broadcasting centers provide an immense amount of information to the pubic, not only in the United Kingdom but also all around the world. However, through the wonderful tours that we had the pleasure of having at these two places we realized many similarities and differences between BBC and Sky which, made it interesting to see just how different each broadcasting center is yet, how well each of them functions.


BBC:

Before visiting BBC all I knew was that it was a broadcasting center in the United Kingdom that not only broadcasting through TV and radio but also through internet sources and social media sources. However, after visiting BBC I realized they do much more than just that. They also have radio drama and radio TV. In addition, I learned the technical portion of their broadcasting system. I never understood how much work it took to broadcast a "simple" news report. Here are some of the things I learned:

Old building is on the left. New building is in the
middle and on the left.

BBC consists of two buildings, the new building and the old building. BBC operates due to taxes on household television. They broadcast in 26 different languages and everything has to be verified twice before it can be aired. They air world news, local news, radio, radio drama and much more. Something I found very interesting about BBC that I believe a lot of people do not know is that they are very technology savvy-- most of their cameras are remote operated and therefore do not need cameramen. In addition, BBC pays well-known and not very well-known performers 66 pounds to perform on their shows which are open to the public for free.

Two very interesting facts that I learned from this tour was that in 1940, the old building was struck by a bomb. The bomb didn't explode until about 15 minutes after the bomb hit the building. However, at the time the bomb hit, a live live radio segment was being aired in that exact location. The broadcaster did not stutter while on air because he did not want to cause panic among London. The second interesting fact that I learned was that the new building has a structure on the roof that shines a light every night representing all of the BBC journalists that have died while reporting.

In my opinion, I believe the BBC tour was very interactive we were able to participate in mock news reports, weather reports and radio drama story. This was a valuable opportunity because we were able to experience what it is like to be on camera and understand what journalists go thorough everyday.


Sky:

Just like BBC I didn't know much about Sky before visiting. However, it was very interesting to see how different broadcasting centers operate. Based on their size and the technology they have access to.

Inside Sky News 

Although Sky is a smaller broadcasting center than BBC and the tour was less interactive I believe I was still able to learn a lot of information and see a lot more than I was expecting. Our group was able to tour Sky News and Sky Sports. Unfortunately, not all of us were able to get a full tour of Sky News because of what has been happening in Paris. However we were able to get a full tour of Sky Sports and see how busy a news room gets when sensitive information is released about a current event. Here are some of the things I learned from visiting Sky:

Sky News is owned by Sky Sports and unlike BBC  it is a profit company. The Sky News buildings look after itself. What this means is that the windows open and the heat goes on when the buildings reaches 28 degrees Celsius and the windows close when the sensors on the top of the roof senses rain.

At Sky Sports the cameras were operated by camera men and some cameras had prompters-- this is something also very different compared to BBC. In addition, for every hour that is aired Sky Sports is only allowed to have 12 minutes of advertisements and the other minutes are allowed to be used for promotion of Sky News and Sky Sports.

An interesting fact that I learned while touring was that Fox News has a room at Sky News where they hold cameras and equipment to help edit and broadcast small segments.

In addition, one of the tour groups had a unique experience at Sky Sports by running into journalist Jeff Sterling and journalist Jim White. This was able to give the group a more personable interaction. Jim White actually stopped and talked to the group to explain how Sky Sports works, how he likes Sky Sports and the work environment at Sky Sports. It really gave that tour group an inside look at him, his job and a large area of the communications field.

Personally, I am not a huge cinema, broadcast/ journalism fan however,  I believe that both of these tours were very valuable. They both gave us different insights into two very different broadcasting centers and different ways in which each center does their work. It really made me realize that there is a lot more planning and monitoring that goes into broadcasting then one thinks. This really is a remarkable area of communications and these tours made me realize just how wonderful this area of communications is.

-Jordyn Jaffe