ITV News

ITV News West Country have a generic weather intro sequence to use in lieu of a sponsor sequence, consisting of arty footage of various weather conditions. They used it long-term a couple of years ago, when there was no then-current weather sponsorship deal in place for a while, until the current First Great Western/GWR sponsorship started. There was/is no such post-forecast sequence, just straight back to the "ITV News Weather" closing sting.

There was a previous occasion when the FGW/GWR was suspended for a day or two, when a negative story about FGW/GWR itself was making the news. And it is currently suspended again. The aforementioned "arty footage" sequence being used during all such suspension scenarios.

It seems a bit unnecessary and OTT to me (especially during that prolonged sponsor-less era in the past). Why not just go straight from the "ITV News Weather" sting to the start of the actual forecast, if there is no sponsorship to be shown? Is finding an extra 15-seconds' worth (or however long it is) of actual news and/or banter (etc) instead really beyond them?

Can't even think who the sponsor is now but I don't think the sponsor ads are too annoying. I know in the past during the Sheila's Wheels era they did often play them out off the back of bulletins where they were very jarring at the best of times, never mind during events like this.

An alternative though to scrapping them completely would be to shift the weather bulletin to the end of the ad break instead so it doesn't immediately follow the news, with a suitable ITV promo played out of the bulletin before the ads.

They can't seem to decide whether News at Ten is on tonight, or if it's a standard bulletin. EPG and Alister referring to it as NAT, but the graphics and titles are standard ITV News.

The STV announcer announced it as NaT as well...

Even if it was Christmas Day, if a bulletin was at 10pm listings would call it News at Ten.

They always do if it's at 10pm, same most Sunday nights as well.

I'm glad that the image of Big Ben striking 10 isn't on a weekend or bank holiday bulletin that happens to be on at 10 anymore.

I've been a regular viewer of News at Ten for years but I find it even more impressive now because of the revamp.

I've noticed from w/c 11th April, the regional news following the Lunchtime News and NAT is listed as a seperate programme. Much better IMO.

It's quite odd how, at least in the Sky EPG, it's listed simply as "Regional News and Weather" as opposed to "ITV News Calendar" or any other regional news. Does anyone know why?

EDIT: Looking at the from 11th April on the EPG it seems the proper names are used and only today and tomorrow is listed as "Regional News and Weather".

Has Mark Austin been on the Evening News this week as well as GMB?

No it's been Alastair Stewart.

Why would Mark Austin be on GMB?