Northern Ireland news thread

It's all part of the idea to have UTV News as a "brand" that will go on TV, on U105 and on U.TV.

How well that will work remains to be seen.

Suppose if most groups pool their news resources across their media, it would make sense for UTV too.

Here's the new endcap:

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/images/utvnews_endcap.jpg

Could the logo BE any bigger? [/chandler]

It's a bit on the crude, ignorant and ugly side.

And what's with the News Gothic font? It's not used anywhere else across UTV Live/News presentation.

Could have been Arial I suppose.

Looking back on last night's UTV Live, I see that they are still using the old red/yellow/blue style captions. Shaky camerawork towards the end of Mark McFadden's report from Coleraine as well.

And they still haven't sorted out aspect ratios on the boxes on two-way graphics...

The high-speed broadband stream seems to be back though.

And yet another different font as well!

Where have the reporters on UTV Live gone?

Liam Creagh has been brought in from Sky News to do another freelance cover stint.

There have been stories featured in the headline sequence at least twice this week that didn't have their own "report", just one of the presenters reading a story over a piece of VT.

Also, have there been more stories on VT with copy read by the presenters this week than usual? The blue screen wipe has been busy to link reports this week.

Neil Brittain's reports from Paris have been good this week, he's really improving and becoming more confident in the sports team, shame the Candystripes lost tonight

I think they've had a bunch leaving - I've heard on the grapevine that UTV aren't happy with the viewing figures for UTV Live and want to

"strengthen the brand"

So presenters won't be appearing in other programmes outside of UTV Live now. And for some reason pulling out of sponsoring a few events.

Eh?!?! I mean, there's such a selection of alternative UTV productions to chose from. Or, are we referring to those who have shows on U105?

These are only suggestions...

Replace Paul Clark, I find he is becoming quite wooden, especially at the end of bulletins where he turns into robot-mode trying to fill the last remaining seconds; since Mike Nesbitt left I feel neither he or Fearghal have been strong enough male anchors.

Improve the weather forecast - Frank Mitchell is awful when presenting, makes slight cock-ups, rambles for too long and can be repetitive and patronising (but I suppose that's what the viewers like) - cf. my earlier comments on weather forecasters - if they could, get Robin Taylor in as permanent weather host

Cut back to half an hour at 6 and get rid of the features section, and tighten up the feel of the 6.00-6.30 slot. The past while, I've found reports in the 6.00-6.30 slot have been too long and drawn out - if these can be more precise and brief, you could integrate the features reports into the 6.00 bulletin. Perhaps create a new programme for the 7.30 slot for the film and music review sections, with Carolyn Stewart and Kirsten McAlpine, hosted by one of the features presenters, I think Alison Fleming would be the best choice. Get rid of the commercial break inbetween, and decide whether or not to take the ITV News "promo" as a daily feature. Not sure what this means about the features hosts - in my opinion ditch Frank but keep on the others as reporters.

How can UTV Live be worried about ratings? Is it still ahead of Newsline? And surely ratings will be down over the summer as more people go on holiday/enjoy what few sunny days there are.

Off-subject comment here, but I just had to say; I don't follow Norn Iron newsreaders or the like, so no surprise when I scanned through this and read...



...and I wondered what the hell was going on for a moment!