SKY News on Spooks

[salfordjohn]

I'm ploughing my way through on my mission to get to the end of S9 before S10 starts, I've just watched S4E4, so I think i'm about 3 or 4 episodes away from when I first started watching it 5 years ago when it was broadcast.

here's a question - from a production / editorial point of view.

Why did Spooks stick with using SKY News for so long in helping tell the story. It started creeping in in S3, and even only 4 episodes into S4 SKY News has been used a lot to assist in short-handing the story telling. I understand the effectiveness and uselfulness of this for telling the story to us as a viewer although sometimes I think it's overused and a bit lazy. I'd be interested on others views on this.

But my main point is why the BBC allowed SKY News to be used for so long, complete with several main SKY presenters (Jeremy Thomson Anna Botting etc).

When does the Grid re-tune it's TVs to BBC News 24 (BBC News Channel later)? And how did they get away with SKY for so long?