ITV News 2013 Rebrand

Can't believe that Blue and yellow theme is nearly 10 years old.
Would still look impressive if it was used today IMO.

I've got to disagree - it has to be my least favourite era of ITV News. The studio itself was tacky with lots of huge over-the-top graphics, and there were the very odd studio presentation bits like marching towards the desk at the start/end. The content was usually the shouty sensationalist headlines they used to do back then too.

I remember the returning presenters they had for the ITV 50 celebrations seemed very uncomfortable with it all, if I remember rightly a few commented at the end of the programme made comments about how much everything had changed - it didn't seem like they meant it in a good way!

The 2004-2006 brand is also one of my favourites of the modern ITV News era. It had a clean and simple design and the music was a refreshing change. The 1999-2004 brand was too heavily influenced by American news design and looked very dated compared to the BBC's chic new look of the same era; whilst the refresh the music received in 2006 was an improvement, the visuals were most definitely worse than 2004. And I feel that it was the 2006-2009 era that was the most sensational editorially as well. It was only News at Ten that was the saving grace of that period. The less said about 2009-2013 the better. I do think the current brand is excellent - and in many ways it reminds me of 2004 in its simplicity and clean design.

The 1999 studio and branding was great at first but it showed its limitations when they began using it full time for the ITV News Channel. Plus I hated it when they changed the colour scheme to yellow and blue to match ITV1 very late into the branding's run, and they got rid of the fixed headline bongs.

Yes, same here. I didn't like it when they dropped the fixed bongs in 2003. It totally destroyed the impact of the opening sequence. I do think they handled the bongs better from 2004 onward, probably helped by the adoption of the SpotOn playout system. This enabled sound effects to be played over each other for the first time.

I don't understand how ITV use a BBC developed VR system IIRC, yet the BBC's VR is terrible bar the TC7 recreation for Hardtalk.

Mark definately is best when out on location - and I think that's where his reporting roots really come to the fore. It always kinds of feel that with the BBC they just dump the host in the location and they essentially do the same job they do in the studio, but with Mark (and to an extent Jon Snow for C4) it comes across that they're on location to get closer to the story and report on it themselves rather than just rely on their correspondents to relay the story.

Yes I agree Brekkie, another who is in my (biased!) view the master of that is Jeremy Thompson on location. In the same mould as Mark Austin with a wealth of previous foreign reporting. Interesting times lay ahead though for ITN. Bill Neely has already been mentioned but the loss of Angus Walker, Laura Kuenssberg and Lawerence McGinty in the near future will no doubt leave a significant void in their presentation.

Sir Christopher Chataway has died aged 82. He was the first newscaster when ITN launched in 1955.

Just because the technology was developed by BBC technicians (or those working for the BBC) doesn't mean they're the same people who design the virtual sets, nor have involvement in fitting, maintaining or operating the physical studios. The ITV crews have far more experience of complex VR environments by now than the BBC's do. It's worth remembering as well that the TC7-like Hardtalk virtual set is rather simple in design, where as the studio C/E variant and Hardtalk ones are both more detailed.

Suppose so, but surely the 3D model visualisations of C/E would have been highly detailed and usable as a VR set. If not, BDA could have adapted it for VR use.

I absolutely love ITV News nowadays.

All but one thing: the decision that was made (last minute I believe) to adopt the greeny-teal for the National News rather than the original 'Royal blue' (which still is featured on Regional graphics and the endboard).

I really don't like the teal colour as it reminds me of the ugly old set we had for a while (which gradually turned bluer before being replaced with yellow). But yeah, would love if there was a minor refresh with the navy replacing the teal and a few respective colour adjustments to the set.

Would make a big difference if a subtle one IMO. The teal feels slightly - wrong. All the best ITV News sets have been with proper blue in my opinion. However there is very small chance the graphics or set will change at all any time soon - which is fine because the current set is the best in decades but it would still be really nice. Big up ITN, everything about it is top notch and I tend to catch both the 6.30 and Ten.