The ITN Nostalgia Thread

Definitely in GIR, chris, as I've never been to the Northern & Shell building in my life. When 5 News returned to ITN from Sky in 2012 it was initially presented from that very minimalist virtual set in GIR Studio 1 as shown in that photo. It used to be produced from PCR4. After a while (can't remember exactly how long it was at GIR) it moved to the Northern & Shell building - including the 'set' you see in my photo. Then it returned to GIR Studio 2 with the current set. Upon returning it was produced in PCR2 for a short time while PCR5 was built in the basement of the adjoining building (under Coley Street).

Ahh I didn’t realise it went Sky to GIR to Northern and Shell to GIR. Thanks for clearing that up!

No worries, chris. I think it was only ever intended as a stop-gap until the Northern & Shell building could be prepared. I'll have to have a dig about and see if I can work out how long it was at GIR for.

And most of the time even now the soundbites rarely add anything to the headline sequence, especially if they're voxpops.



Didn't they go straight into the first story but for a time at least had a quick "coming up" sequence before the second story?

Yeah, I think they did that quick coming up trail (about 2 stories?) for the entire time it was known as the Early Evening News. It was probably a trade-off for the lack of a headlines sequence. You might recall that the 540 News always used to have a short headlines sequence at the start that was dropped when it became the EEN.

I’m not sure the pan across the atrium intro would have got praise at the time if this forum had been around. It looks impressive and iconic now but basically there were no opening titles, just the atrium pan. It’s like if the BBC News scrapped their opening titles and just did the newsroom pan.

Same goes for the slightly later era when the intro consisted of just a static shot of the studio with a caption at the bottom. Different times of course.

I admit that I didn't like it when the EEN dropped its Big Ben opening titles in 1997. The lack of titles on the weekend bulletins wasn't too bad but it was a shame when that format was applied to the EEN as well. I wonder why they did that? Timings, maybe?

A couple of other photos that might be of interest.

This shows where Studio 4 used to be - seems to be a couple of small offices/booths in between the white pillars in the centre of the photo. To the left is the corner of the ITV newsroom and to the bottom right is the C4 News studio.



And this one is of The Wright Stuff set being struck after the show. As you can see it's placed directly in front of the 5 News set. The TWS set goes into storage each day.

Well they nearly did and personally I wish they had - would have felt like a complete new look to lose that imagery completely.

Studio 3 wouldn’t look out of place today. It had a pulse and was quite innovative considering the hitherto plain studio set-ups used by ITN up until then.

I seem to recall Alastair Burnet anchoring rolling coverage from that position on one occasion. Quite a rarity. Or, perhaps, he was interviewed by John Suchet in this location, Alastair being to John’s left.

Why John would interview Sir Alastair on a rolling news matter remains unknown, but I have vague memories of it happening.

So they must have moved buildings during the Gulf War? The long newsflash that John Suchet did when Desert Storm started was featured in a documentary a few years ago. That looked like a pokey little studio presumably at Wells Street?

27 mins in here:
https://youtu.be/jnNOHfkNNR4

I've only ever actually seen standing sets such as for regional ITV or BBC News, and they all looked fairly shoddy close up.


If the TWS/Vine set is struck and reset 5 times a week, then I'm guessing it must be fairly robust to cope with all that manhandling. HD cameras are surely a fierce critic.

What happens with Lorraine usually in TC3. Is she "dismantled, bundled into a storeroom and covered with a blanket for 24 hours", or left behind LW, Peston and MLMS?