ITV News

I'd love them to try something like that again. That theme is the best version of the NAT theme I think.

Agreed. I would love to see how the News at Ten titles would be adapted nowadays a decade on from being updated last time around (and criminally only used for a very short amount of time).

I think they could easily create a look more stylised to the classic News at Ten look, whilst retaining corporate identity. Maybe when Big Ben completes its current renovation works in 2021 could we see a return to the classic Big Ben titles.

Given the fact that ITV dropped the night time London flyover titles of News at Ten after less than two years in November 2009, I think it is safe to say they don't really care about that look and prefer the "corporate" unified style of titles, with the little variation for News at Ten - which is just a nugget thrown to viewers who prefer the traditional style of titles.

You're anthropomorphizing ITV again.

ITV is not a person. A decision taken by a (now long gone) executive a decade ago says nothing about what they might wish to try out again.

Good point about News at Ten 2008. I'd forgotten about that look, probably because it was so short-lived. I agree that it didn't work so well when it was rolled out to the daytime bulletins.

Going back to the 90s, this was what I was talking about earlier:



Fabulous in every respect. I remember at the time that both ITN and BBC News shared the same colour scheme (predominantly blue) and whilst both had terrific news themes, I think ITN edged it in terms of studio and graphics. It was incredinly clean and the studio itself was incredibly flexible. Studio 3 was used for daytime/weekend ITV bulletins as well as ITN World News and, with the aid of a curtain, was even used for the Big Breakfast News bulletins for a while. BBC News, on the other hand, seemed very staid and inflexible. But I did like the BBC's theme music and cut glass titles.

The other ITN presentation that I think has aged pretty well is the Early Evening News from 1992-95:



Whilst the various brands used by ITN before 1992 have very severely dated and look now like they very much came from a different era, I always thought the EEN brand was pretty clean and tidy. Cool music, too, by Alan Hawkshaw.

How about this for 80s fabulousness!



I can't believe a news set looked like that at one time. What's funny about that era is that ITN seemed to get hold of some sort of computer graphics kit in about 1986 and proceeded to jazz up every bulletin over a period of about 2 years. Realising it had all dated very badly by 1990 they set about rebranding everything again in about 1992.

This was sloppy as they still had the teal intro titles etc and nothing fitted together.

I've never been able to hear that music without thinking of the song Munchkinland from the Wizard of Oz:



(The bit that starts at 0:52)

ITV want consistency and so there will not be a large departure from the look of the other bulletins. The current set and theme seems to be what they like, and they will keep it for another year maybe.


ITV went all corporate for their national news in 2009 and have not looked back. So any changes to the News at Ten will be in line with how the 1.30 and 6.30 bulletins look too, regardless of whoever is in charge at ITN.

I think some of the graphics could be tidied up. Name straps look a little clunky and could be made a little smaller and more dynamic in their animation, they’re probably the only dated-looking element. Titles still look great though.

Well technically speaking the process of becoming homogeneous started in 1995 when the daytime and weekend bulletins were brought into line with each other, leaving only News at Ten as a standalone product. In 1999 they finished the job and had a completely unified brand. The only deviation since then has been the return of News at Ten briefly in 2008. From 1999-2008 and again from 2009 to present, their brand has been completely unified. And of course, so has the regional news since 2004. I think that may be one of the stumbling blocks these days in any kind of rebrand. Whereas in decades gone by, ITN could decide to rebrand ITV News, nowadays the regions have to be factored in as well. That must take quite a lot of planning and also cash. My guess is they're broadly happy with it as it is when weighed up against the cost and hassle of changing everything again - especially when the overall branding really hasn't aged.

Exactly, and on the whole ITV have managed the regional look better than the BBC, though of course have less studios.

I think a bit of evolution would be nice in a similar way to how the News at Ten revamp evolved from the generic look, but at the moment a large scale revamp isn't needed.

The only change I really want to make to ITV News in the short term is to replace that awful female voice over at the start. She wasn't too bad when she recorded the first batch in 2013 but in recent times her delivery has become very inconsistent. Andrew Burt she is not.

Speaking of voice overs, I don't know if this is common knowledge but before Andrew Burt started doing the voice overs in 1992, overnight newsreader Phil Roman actually voiced many of the v/o's for ITN. And going back even further, Simon Bates did a few in the 1970s and early 80s.