Sky Sports staff fuming over survey asking viewers to judge on ‘sexiness’ of presenters

Sky Sports News have reportedly left several members of staff furious after sending out an online survey which asked viewers to judge if their presenters were “sexy” and “good-looking”.

The iconic rolling news channel was looking to improve it’s services with what they thought was some pretty innocent market research.

However, members of the company’s management are now facing crisis talks with enraged senior presenters over what they thought was initially an April Fools' Day prank.

According to the Daily Mail, a Sky Insight survey sent out this week involved a section inviting viewers to judge regular presenters on Sky Sports News.

The were options for input on whether the presenters had a number of characteristics or attributes, including'reliable', 'sexy', 'good-looking', 'pretentious' and 'irritating'.

While some initially thought ‘April Fools’, Director of Sky Sports News Mark Alford has indeed confirmed that the question was put to subscribers, though it made it clear that the questions were not gender specific.

It is alleged that the survey was formatted by a market research company and was sent in error.

While a Sky spokesman also informed the Mail that the data which was collected has never been used, and nor will the survey in question again.

They said: “A survey which had historically been used for testing opinion on entertainment shows and characters, including comedy, was mistakenly used for Sky Sports and will not be used again.”

Meanwhile, Sky Sports have allowed viewers to pause their subscription package while football takes a hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic.

A statement from the broadcaster read: “Whilst we expect that many of the recently postponed sports events will go ahead, if you wish to pause your Sky Sports subscription in the meantime you will not be charged a fee to do so or be held to any notice period.

“Meanwhile we continue to provide high quality content across all of our 11 Sky Sports channels.”