ITV News

To be fair I'd like to see a return to the old style of ITV News At Ten - with Big Ben and old tune coming back - making it more of a separate news and political programme than the other news bulletins.

I'd like it to be about 50 minutes (including weather) with more emphasis on home and international news and a political slant with a more decent sports news service and a new business section and round off with the look at the headlines and a true return to a lighter news item at the end (aka And Finally). And then between 1050pm and 11pm would be regional news. The way commercials are done at moment means there would be virtually no breaks (may be except when football has been shown and possibly a break between NAT and regional news).

In other news...... I would move the early evening news to between 530pm and 630pm thus opening up a new 30 minute slot for daytime for a possible soap (either home grown or overseas - such as Shortland Street) and extend primetime by 30 minutes as it does seem they do now have problems in scheduling a lot of programmes nowadays. Plus lunchtime news I would move to 1230 slot and start Loose Women (or its replacements) at 1310 and last for 50 minutes including commercials. thus meaning 30 minute news bulletin followed by a 10 minute regional news bulletin (including commercials)

To be honest, an increase in time devoted to news is very unlikely, but I would like to see it stand out a bit more - although making it longer and more political risks too much overlap with Newsnight.

Moving the Evening News to 5.30pm COULD be a good move ratings-wise - they'd be the first of the big three channels (I'm not counting five) to go to air with their Evening News programme and wouldn't have to compete with the high-rating BBC Regional News. However, I suppose the current 5pm shows are already pretty popular.

Moving the Evening News to 5:30pm would be a monumentally stupid decision. You'd lose far more viewers of The Chase than would be gained by the news.

The Chase or The Paul O' Grady Show are ratings winners for ITV. They'd never mess with that.

One change I do agree with is moving the Lunchtime News back to 12.30. ITV aren't ahead of the BBC at all with any of its bulletins. The BBC broadcast first on the 1 and 6 and then they both clash at 10.

ITV need at least one bulletin ahead of the Beeb and Lunchtime is the only one they can theoretically change back to gain viewers wanting their first news hit after Breakfast. They only changed it in the first place so they could extend it to an hour and that flopped.

Sounds familiar....lunchtime news at 12:30.....early evening news at 5:40....news at ten with the bongs....shall we bring back Denis Touhy for the early morning news at 5:30 and Graham Miller to do the sport at the weekend?

I agree with those saying the Lunchtime News needs moving back to 12:30, if only to inject a bit of breathing space into that huge block of daytime programmes. Not sure if moving Loose Women/whatever to 12:30 has actually boosted its ratings or not.

Both The Chase/Paul O'Grady and the News at 6:30 perform well in their timeslots so I can't see them ripping it up and starting again. I suppose they could switch it all around if they wanted to (regional news at 5, then the national news at 5:30, then The Chase at 6)... but why?? It would be a ludicrous move.

News at Ten is fine as it is right now, but clearly winning RTS News Programme of the Year (and Mark winning Presenter of the Year) isn't good enough for the powers that be. The fact that it loses out to BBC News in the ratings is no reflection on NAT's quality - it's simply because the BBC were at 10 for years while ITV dithered around in the wilderness.

I do think the current ITV News branding is pretty much perfect but I suppose NAT could benefit from a tiny bit more individuality as the flagship bulletin.

The only time change I would make is to move lunchtimes to 12:30. No point moving the evening news to be before the BBC if it's so early people aren't home from work yet. Plus that time period works well and there is no interest for non news programming at 6:30.

Another change I would make is to stop clashing the teatime news at weekends. Evidence shows people will watch ITV News at weekends but won't when they follow each other around the schedule, particularly when the BBC News is on early, ITV should be later.

Making News at Ten stand out with more analysis, interviews and a paper review would make it stand out but it's doubtful anyone would be interested and would just stick to the BBC. Newsnight rates very poorly after all.

ITV News don't really see 'News At Ten' as the flagship anymore though, in fact they seem to push the 18:30pm programme more. I agree with potentially moving the Lunchtime News back to 12:30, as stated previously it would allow the programme a chance to shine before the BBC's offering. The 18:30 bulletin surely won't move as that's fairly popular...though it didn't stop them with News At When...

As for the News as a whole, I still think ITV should be looking at a 20 minute National/10 minute Regional format (12:30/18:30 and 22:00) for their News programming. I think I read ITV is capable of having between 25-27 different editions of sub-Regional programming so maybe using some of this capability to produce shorter, snappier more localised 10 minute editions of their Regional bulletins is the way to go (along with sub-Regional News on GMB)? I'd then personally like to see much of the fluffier pieces of the Regional News moved to a half hourly pan-Regional weekly programme (such as Central Life?) along with the return of a more relevant pan-Regional Political slot (20 minute programme?) instead of the monthly programmes.

* Now as I said before what to fill a 18:00 slot with...something from Birmingham methinks. A new Brummie soap maybe (not Crossroads please!!!).

What makes you think they don't see News at Ten as their flagship bulletin?

They have their lead presenters fronting it.
They offer NaT up for the top awards, such as RTS News Programme of the Year.
They save some of their big exclusives for the programme.

I don't see ITV ever pushing the evening bulletin any more.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3138874/News-Ten-presenters-war-ITV-plans-ditch-current-line-up.

More speculation

On one hand, the current Ten is solid, but offers nothing that the BBC are trouncing them on. Yet a distinctive bulletin with Tom would offer a niche.

So...



Yet...