Five News from ITN

Yes, it's based in building with two 'newspapers', and it's in Central london. So as well as the journalists from those papers, it'll be the same group of guests who turn up all the time on things like The Wright Stuff, Alan Titchmarsh and the paper reviews.

There are people making a living out of those kind of appearances and they'll be more than happy to get another booking every week or so.

Well said, Sky News can get guests at 6.30am and they're based in the middle of nowhere in comparison to C5.



In fairness to Sky it was the C5 bosses at the time who made them go down the Showbiz route.

The main problem with having news in that slot, is that it's up against BBC Regional News, and the ITV News at 6.30. It was always going to lose out to those two. Not sure that this new programme will make a lot of difference. 9pm would be a better time, but somehow I don't see Channel 5 doing that.

Channel 5 know that, but they'd rather stick the news on that time and come third, than a more lucrative slot in the schedule.

The new programme at least has a point of difference to the BBC and ITV options so it seems sensible to me.

Exactly. I think Five News has been in every slot from 5pm to 9pm over the years (although IIRC it was only in the 8pm slot in the pre-launch schedules, moving to 8.30pm on launch), but currently it makes much more sense to schedule 5 News at 6.30pm and then have a free hour at 7pm rather than have it at 7pm as it was then have to fill two half-hour slots either side of it. It's definitely an example of a channel being better off scheduling for it's own needs rather than scheduling around the competition.

To be honest IMO if 5 went into the morning news market again, they'd be on to a winner! Channel 5 is very light, but could still run a decent news segment in a breakfast show.

No they wouldn't. That's why they're not doing it.

What on earth makes you think that!?

The channel is light enough to be able to produce a breakfast show, but its news operation is strong enough to have a strong news segment/newshour or whatever.

It definitely isn't. There is a limited demand for such a programme and that audience is pretty well served by Daybreak.

Channel 5 do very well out of Milkshake.

I'm surprised that Channel 5 haven't been to Uncle Ofcom to ask if the 18:30 bulletin can be scrapped, maybe in exchange for a couple more update bulletins throughout the day?

As for a Breakfast programme on Channel 5, I can't see it happening sadly. Daybreak struggles to get viewers (that Franchise should be scrapped in my opinion) and even the BBC's offering is weak.

I perfer Sky's Sunrise, Breakfast is just getting boring now and Daybreak looks like a childs playhouse