Sky News to capture instant
reaction to Leaders’ Debates via
text polling
Sky News has announced that it is to provide real-time feedback, analysis and insight, captured from TV viewers, for each of the three General Election Leaders’ Debates. Sky News has partnered with real-time survey company Fizzback and research agency Futuresight to capture the response of a panel of voters, as Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg debate the key issues in this year’s election.
An electorally representative panel, recruited by Fizzback, will be surveyed in real time via SMS text as they watch the three party leaders live on television. Prior to, during and immediately after the debate, the panel will be asked questions to validate that they are watching, ensuring the highest level of accuracy, followed by a series of questions including who they think the winners and losers are, and why. The survey will provide the fastest insight into voter’s response to the leaders’ performance, personalities and policies displayed during the debates.
The data will be automatically collated and the results will power a live analysis widget on www.skynews.com and production graphics on Sky News which will show the popularity of each leader. The Sky News production team will have a deeper breakdown of the data, by region, age and gender, giving unparalleled analysis of the debates.
John Ryley, Head of Sky News said: “This service will give Sky News the edge on accurate reporting of the Leaders’ Debates using insight direct from the people that matter – the voters. The results will provide an unrivalled level of real-time insight into how the voters are reacting towards the three leaders.”
Rob Keve, CEO at Fizzback, said: “Technology has made this, for many, the first real ‘people’s election’ where the public can fully interact with the democratic process and make their views heard in real-time. For the millions of people who are watching this election with interest, it has never been more important for voter sentiment to be accurately reported, so that conclusions can be drawn more accurately – crucial in such a close Parliamentary tussle.”
Fizzback offers real-time polling and insight, and is used by many leading UK companies. The ease and convenience of using SMS texts, coupled with sophisticated analytical software, allows Fizzback to capture a more immediate response than traditional polling methods. The panel of more than 6,000 voters has been pre-selected to represent the demographics of the whole of the UK. Rigorous quota sampling and weighting of the results will be overseen by Futuresight to ensure the results are robust.
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Notes to editors:
How it works
The unique Fizzback Artificial Intelligence Engine will break comments down into policy and personality elements, performing sentiment analysis to determine how viewers are reacting to all aspects of Brown, Cameron and Clegg.
About Sky News and Skynews.com
Since its launch in 1989, Sky News has established itself as a formidable and innovative force in the world of news broadcasting. It now provides news to around 145 million people in 36 countries in Europe alone, with distribution across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Valued for fairness, balance and journalistic objectivity by both viewers and regulators, the award-winning channel has also earned a reputation for the speed of its 24-hour coverage and flexibility in reporting live news – first.
In addition to its status as one of Europe’s leading 24 hour news channels, skynews.com is one of the fastest growing websites on the continent and reaches way beyond its average eight and half million monthly unique users. It serves text and video to Britain’s commercial radio websites, to giant animating billboards in all major railway stations in the UK seen by 56 million commuters a fortnight, to passengers on Virgin Atlantic flights, and more than one million iPhone users via the most downloaded news application in the country.
In March 2009 Sky News Radio became the sole provider of national and international news to all commercial stations in the UK – reaching around 31 million listeners in total – when it took over the contract to supply IRN stations, in addition to its existing clients.
In February 2010 Sky News won the prestigious RTS News Channel of the Year award for a record seventh time. It won the Golden Nymph at the 2009 Monte Carlo Television Festival for Best 24 Hour News Programme for its coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks. Sky News was also named Best News Service at the Broadcast Digital Awards 2009 and Skynews.com won the Association of Online Publishers award for website of the year 2008.
About Fizzback
Fizzback helps brands to engage with their customers. The Fizzback™ service solicits instant customer comments at the point of experience and employs a unique artificial intelligence engine to understand the nature, sentiment and tone of responses. An interactive dashboard, including KPIs and verbatim customer feedback, helps senior management drive their business by voice-of-customer.
Fizzback™ is being used by companies determined to innovate and differentiate themselves through a superior customer experience. In practical terms it is like being able to walk the shop floor 24/7, listening to what your customers are saying and acting upon their insights.
Headquartered in London, Fizzback is privately owned and backed by Advent Venture Partners and Nauta Capital. Contact: 0845 067 1000
About Futuresight
Futuresight are experts in media, technology and communications research. We help brands succeed by delivering inspirational insights into the attitudes and behaviours of citizens and consumers – offline, online and on mobile. Our clients include the BBC, Ofcom, IBM and Alcatel Lucent and we’ve worked on everything from the development of mobile web services to impact of behavioural targeting on individual privacy. We are based in the UK but increasingly make sense of media, technology and communications in different parts of the world.
