The ITN Nostalgia Thread

No he moved to the weekends literally the week before the channel actually closed, meaning his new show lasted all of two days.
The ITV news channel schedule was all over the place save for the breakfast slot and the 4pm hour with Steve and Felicity. There's a whole archive on this forum dedicated to its rota.
Interesting though that its cost saving methods which were seen as cheap and nasty at the time (single headed presentation, simulcasts) are now very much place on BBC and Sky.

Two days? Well that's one better than The Debbie King Show, which launched on ITV Play's last day. Of course both Play and the ITV News Channel closed rather suddenly.

Basically, the 48.5% of the D3&4 multiplex controlled by the Channel 3 licence holder was under the control of GMTV until 9:25am, meaning Carlton, Granada, STV and UTV had no automatic right to use any of the capacity before 9:25am. The old Teletext on ITV service via Freeview was originally unavailable between 6 and 9:25 for the same reason.

As stations merged and the new ITV plc gained majority control, then total control of GMTV, these anomalies stopped.

The 6:00-9:25 hours on the CITV channel are still technically part of the breakfast franchise though (the reason why programmes always start at 9:25 on there).

Found it James - about 6:30 into this clip:



He's clearly not used to rolling news - shortly after the start he doesn't look at the monitor when throwing to Jeremy Thompson...and calls him Jeremy Taylor. Bless him

Here are images of the ITV News Channel in Studio 1:

https://tvfi.co.uk/fetch/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dolben.demon.co.uk%2Fnewschannel%2Fsecondstudio_overhead.jpg&digest=84b856655637ee184b03854ad0bb6f50a6b17558

https://tvfi.co.uk/fetch/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dolben.demon.co.uk%2Fnewschannel%2Fvirtuald2_3.jpg&digest=3e43b4b435f5f14eefed4e421b9a77cc3df1492e

It was a decent enough version of the main set in Studio 2, but at times it was sloppy.

You could always tell when Studio 1 was being used, as the top spotlights over the curved backdrop was the giveaway

https://tvfi.co.uk/fetch/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dolben.demon.co.uk%2Fnewschannel%2Fvirtuald2_2.jpg&digest=1395295313f4cdc799a8e9895e4ac513ea2c9a64

https://tvfi.co.uk/fetch/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dolben.demon.co.uk%2Fnewschannel%2Fninafelicity.jpg&digest=e4cf928485750f6ed1ede84b4f9946ffa77cd1c5

https://tvfi.co.uk/fetch/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dolben.demon.co.uk%2Fnewschannel%2Falastairlucysport.jpg&digest=84130d4d05ffdc45834d9ca5649333056514c17b

Well the virtual walkway was the far bigger clue.

Still looks better than what the BBC has to offer today Studio A.

Simulcasting network bulletins during Breaking news, sub standard overnights, being thrown out of the studio into other locations at various times, it was all ridiculed as examples of why the ITV News Channel was done on the cheap at the time, but of course the BBC News Channel have implemented all those features and more.

It's a pity the ITV News Channel isn't still with us really. There hasn't been anything quite like it since. OK, it was done on the cheap, but as a direct consequence of that it just delivered a solid round-up of news in a very straightforward manner. I think it would have done pretty well in the modern age of bitesize news and short attention spans. There clearly isn't the appetite for long-form rolling news anymore as most channels have cut right back. Even in the early 2000s, as much as I loved BBC News 24, I still watched the ITV NC. If you just wanted a snapshot of the main news in about 15 minutes, it was unparalleled. Whereas over on BBC News 24 or Sky News, you'd just get into the bulletin and they would break off for some very tedious press conference. You didn't get that sort of stuff routinely on the ITV NC.

Absolutely - they had a point of difference to the BBC and Sky and although it struggled at first once they moved into the theatre of news and seemingly had a little bit (but not a huge amount) more money behind it with new shows like Live with Alastair Stewart and a little bit of double headed presentation during the day it really began to shine. I think they also made good use of the regions.

It still frustrates me it was basically axed with the excuse they didn't have space for it on Freeview yet a few months later ITV Play was launched in new space bought by ITV. Sadly the execs view was obviously that news cost money, phone in comps made money.