The ITN Nostalgia Thread

The 'newsroom' News at Ten started in 1992 I believe. The opener included big ben, the aerial shot of ITN HQ & the swoop through the newsroom to the presenter at the desk. By 1994 the aerial shot of ITN HQ was lost and it became a pan across the atrium to the desk. By 1995, it was just big ben and straight into Trevor at the desk. Sad times

They shortened the Lunchtime News opening as well from a really grand opening to something much less so. This of course from an era when every news programme looked different.

Did Carol Barnes never present News at Ten again after the bulletin went single headed with Sir Trev?

So which studio did this come from?



and how much of that was real? I'm guessing it wasn't anywhere as big in real life as it was on screen, I can't remember if it was when this set started or ended but they gave a preview of the next set on the Evening News saying from Monday we have a new look, I think it was when this set launched now I think about it.

Not sure, but they recorded a voiceover for her. As well as Jon Snow and Alistair Stewart

Isn't that in the basement? In the studio used now? It was all physical I think apart from the top bit. I hated that set. Particularly those monitor stacks. It stayed far too long, and seemed to start the trend of backdrops of empty newsrooms (now commonplace).

Yeah it was criminal cutting the Lunchtime News titles in half. It had that great Alan Hawkshaw music.

Such a great time for ITN branding. As it was said earlier, the 1992-95 period was so different to what the BBC was offering at the same time. The BBC was quite pompous, bombastic and over-the-top (despite this I do still love it as a pres geek) but ITN was bright, breezy and modern. The move to GIR was such a good decision as it created a splendid backdrop to its news programmes. During the early years they really used it to its maximum effect. I guess that was a side effect of being cooped up in Wells Street for decades before - they suddenly had room to expand and breathe.

Going back to Wells Street for a moment, it is striking just how much they managed to fit in there really. By the 1980s they were doing all of the following:

Channel 4 Daily
News at One
News at 545/540
Channel 4 News
News at Ten
Weekend News
Superchannel News
The World This Week
Their Lordships' House
The Parliament Programme
Into the Night
Summaries
ITV National Weather
Specials for elections, budgets and space shuttle launches

I've still probably missed some - but when you put it like that, it's amazing what they achieved in Wells Street if they only had two fairly small studios and the odd Portakabin. No wonder they had to move to GIR. Ironically, things started declining after that - I think the 1980s was probably ITN's heyday really.

That was from one of the basement studios wasn't it. Loved it back then though when you got from ident to the first story in a little over 30 seconds, and for all the issues around News at Ten at the time for me the ITV Nightly News at 11pm really worked at the time as a short concise nightly summary at a time which worked for me, especially as BBC2 and C4 were very strong at 10pm back then.

I think it was in Studio 2 between 1999 and 2004. I seem to remember they built the Theatre of News in Studio 1 and were able to give a preview of it on the last Evening News because the other new set was next door. It's been back in Studio 1 since then, I think.

It was 21 years ahead of it's time.

Yeah I loved the short, snappy headlines too. Both ITV and the BBC had fixed 'bongs' at that time so the headlines had to be less than 5 seconds. Eventually they started moving away from that to the mess we currently have. Granted, ITV is still far better than the BBC whose headline sequences are feature length now.

Do you remember in about 2002 ITV News started trying to insert clips into the headlines but they were so ridiculously short (due to the fixed music) as to be useless? Then they remixed the opening music so that the bong sound could be inserted as required, rather than in time with the music.

And of course in the (atrium era) of The Early Evening News you didn't get a headline sequence at all. Straight to John Suchet with the first story within about 12 seconds. They only had 20 minutes so made the most of the time.

Great images but I don’t think this one is right. Channel 5 News remained at Northern and Shell until 2016, meaning this is more likely to be in that building than Studio 2 at ITN?