ITV News

I don't think it was a surprise to anyone that ITN will continue to provide the news on ITV. I would just like to see more content from them, and put a bit more money into more news programming.

In 2005 when they closed the ITV News Channel they said money would be used from its closure to fund news bulletins on ITV2 and ITV3, something which never happened.

Weekend news in the mornings on ITV is non existent. BBC Breakfast provides a weekend version on BBC One, but GMB is off, and CITV takes over, and the only news from ITV is a short summary at 8.25am. It feels like ITV have gone back to the BBC of 1991 who would provide a short 5 minute summary at 7.25am on a Saturday and that was your lot for breakfast news at the weekend.

Growing up in the 90s in the era of GMTV I don’t recall any news provision on Saturdays it was kids TV (Power Rangers, etc) and in Sunday’s I can only recall The Sunday programme with Mr Stewart.

The only news programme on a weekend I can remember is the special they did for Diana’s death. I’m open to being corrected.

Well it's not non-existant is it - the bulletin is consistently there at either 8.25am or 9.25am, and actually nothing wrong with having a short bulletin rather than a 3-hour show for people just wanting a quick morning catch up.

I suppose it could be argued that the presence of the dreadful FYI Daily on ITV2 and ITV4 covers that. Even if it is painfully tacky and splits the EPG entries...

It’s produced by ITN- very rubbish with celebrity nonsense in no real detail any way and the unprofessional for any show sign off as “see ya”

The Sunday Programme contained a news bulletin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVaPXbfmjtU
I'm sure there was at least one occasion it aired on a 'stand alone' basis when Formula 1 aired during most of the GMTV timeslot

The odd thing about the above clip is that it shows the end of ITV’s night continuity into GMTV, but the clock appears as 7:00 rather than 6:00, unless this was on a day where a Grand Prix aired until the early hours and it was kept simple with GMTV starting on the hour.

I’m pretty sure that even on a Saturday morning GMTV aired a short bulletin at 6am before Tots programmes kicked in, this most probably changed over the years.

If you look later in the news bulletin in the clip the newsreader says 'The Japanese Grand Prix has just finished', so presumably GMTV starting late and on the hour is exactly what happened!

They did, at 6am, but they binned it off at some stage, probably when it no longer became contractual to air news 7 days a week.

Looks like Alastair Stewart will be filling in for Julia Hartley-Brewer on the Talk Radio breakfast show on bank holiday Monday:

https://talkradio.co.uk/radio/schedule/2019-05-06

I'm astounded by that. There is a general principle in radio of never letting anybody better than you cover your show.

Although in JHB's that would leave a very small pool of cover options

I can't imagine Alastair will be anything less than excellent.

On an unrelated note, I find it slightly strange that so many links on that page lead to a 404 error. Even clicking on the standard JHB breakfast show for the rest of the week takes you to a dead link. But the Wireless Group have always seemed a bit amateurish with their online presence compared to the other big radio companies.