Central (West) News Week

On the assumption that CNwest and CNeast will move into the "new" studios in the Gas Street building tomorrow, I tuned into today's CNweek(west), expecting it to be the final programme from the reception/foyer "set".

But it appeared to be coming from the short bulliten CSO set instead, but with the photo-of-Brum background (as used behind the sofa in the pre-summer studio set) keyed in, rather than the usual short bulletin virtual set.

A single locked-off shot was therefore used, with split-screen handovers to the newsroom, as a substitute for people sitting further around the sofa.

At least, I think it was CSO - I suppose it could have been a small section of the former studio backdrop, propped up in a corner of the reception or something. In either case, why they couldn't just use the normal reception set is beyond me.

Yes it was the CSO, as you could tell the slight tint round the presenter. Why they used that backdrop, it looked auwful. So the new set will be unveiled tomorrow? About time too!

I don't know that they'll be back in the studio tomorrow, I'm just assuming (what with it being the first Monday of September, and all that).

I've heard nothing official mentioned, so don't necessarily expect anything. What with the ITV News generic look, one expects that it'll only be the set that changes, not the titles, music, namestraps, etc. Therefore any big on-screen announcement re: a new look, is unlikely.

But if it does happen tomorrow, there would surely be a passing announcement on, say, the mid-morning bulletin?

One would imagine that if CNeast were moving to Brum tomorrow, this would have been clearly mentioned today (and/or Friday). But, then again, because having the news based outside of the region that it serves is not gonna be popular, maybe they'd deliberately downplay it.

Will CNwest and CNeast just re-erect their respective existing sets in the Gas Street studios, or are they having new ones? Seeing as the existing ones are rather "makeshift" (i.e. pre-generic sets, "repainted" to look generic), new sets would be better IMHO.

It'll be effectively the fourth set of the year then for Central News.

Eric Macinnes has just been on the ITV News Channel as part of UK Today, but from the newsroom rather than the studio.