October 1st 2007 will go down in broadcasting history as a very active day.
Sky News launched a new daytime schedule today. Sky Today with Julie Etchingham aired at 9am, with Afternoon Live with Kay Burley taking over at 1pm. After two hours of Live at Five, Sky News at 7 with Anna Botting aired, before Jeff Randall Live at 7.30pm.
Diva TV launched today at Noon on Sky digital channel 282. First programme, Oprah Winfrey Show. 3 other channels launched today on Sky. Faith Channel on 773, Angel on 774 and Noor TV on 822
NPR launched their new morning drivetime programme "The Bryant Park Project". It aired for the first time at 7am ET/ Noon UK.
Virgin 1 launched at 9pm. The channel had counted down to launch from 6pm, and it's first programme was an episode of Criminal Minds. The FTN and FTN+1 chananels on Sky (153 & 154) were renamed Virgin 1 and Virgin 1 +1.
BBC World News America launched at 6pm ET / 11pm UK on both BBC World and BBC America. The bulletin is presented by Matt Frei. A shortened version got shown on BBC News 24 at 00.30 am.
Fox Business Network put up a preview microsite on their website. Fox Business is due to launch on October 15th 2007. Previously if you'd typed in foxbusiness.com, you would have been taken to the Business News section of the Fox News website.
Phew! What a day!
Thankfully, we don't get too many days like this one. But with the internet meaning that media news now can spread around the world in seconds, we can know about all this and indeed, follow it all, even listening to the new NPR show live on the net.
And this was just the start of a media Octoberfest that will see more launches before the month is out, including the big launch of Fox Business Network on the 15th.
Stay tuned!
