Northern Ireland news thread

From last night's inaugural studio debate on UTV Live Tonight, here's some off-air captures of the set, including how it figures in the current Studio 1 set-up:

That little table would benefit from some internal back-lighting... get ride of all those nasty shadows.

Nice little change to the front of the desk tonight. They've taken the UTV Live off it and replaced it with a smaller version of the voteni text and coloured logo. Looks much better.

See UTV are using their election theme tune yet again this time, 10 years after they first went with it

It was used to introduce and conclude last night's debate from Omagh. Mind you, it goes well with the graphics package this year I reckon.

Despite the bad astons for the first half of the programme.... the aston background may animate off, but the text certainly didn't!

Not on the scale of superinjuctions, but a Tweeter has mentioned there's talk in today's local press that a certain UTV reporter may be heading to ITN... as I can't find any evidence online of this story, what's the word on it?

A shame if true, he will be a big loss to UTV if he goes. Marc has made a big impression in the short time he's been there, much more so than any of the other additions they've had over the last few years. Who will they line up to replace Ken Reid now??

Interesting! He's the best young presenter on any of the local news programmes. Wonder if going to London would 'compromise' his lifestyle in any way?

Today's Daily Mirror headline:

UTV MARC WEDS BOYFRIEND

When he tweeted last week to say be was on his way to Mauritius he was leaving for his honeymoon.

That always was one of things that everyone knew but was never really officially 'announced' - surprised one of the papers has actually went ahead with it.

Of course, no Daily Mirror online article, nor any coverage from the other NI papers yet. Good luck to the Malletts

I think it's a case of everyone going 'so what' - which is actually a positive thing!

There was another similar situation a while back where another paper thought they had grounds to publish a story on someones sexuality... the relevant person and employers went 'and your point is' - subsequently the story went away.