Five News from ITN

If it makes no sense to you, then you are missing something. I don't know what, but somehow, you cannot see what to me and my mind is as real as the desk I am sitting at.



It's not a massive leap. I think you're over-estimating the differences between UK and US, and between telvision and radio, and underestimating some basic human fundamentals, as best I can tell.



Ah, that's the figure for network primetime, and some shows have far less than that, and some have far more. ESPN's Olbermann show for instance, has an average running time of around 47 minutes for a one hour show. Shows like Around The Horn, and Pardon The Interruption, still come in at 22 minutes for a half hour show. At the other end of the scale, WWE Raw on USA Network seems to have an average hourly running time of 38 minutes per hour. Out of interest, some talk radio stations in the US can be almost as bad, with most talk radio hours coming in at just 35 minutes in duration, not including 6 minutes of network news, which can have as much as 2 minutes of commercial anyway. By contrast public radio's average hour is around 50 minutes, and public television's varies between 53 and 56 minutes, depending on whether they're showing half hour programmes or one hour programmes. Putting all that together, the overall average, comes out a bit higher than the network average.



That's true to an extent. Most radio ads in the US these days tend to be 60 seconds in length, as longer ads, mean they can have longer breaks and make it feel like less of an interuption. Listeners don't tend to notice the length of the ads, as much as they notice the number of them, so 8 30 second ads, feels like more of an interruption than 6 60 second ads, despite the total length being two minutes shorter.



Except they weren't irrelevant, and actually were important. I can lead you through the thinking, but I cannot make you see the point, if you choose not to see it.



Again, if you cannot see what to me is plainly obvious, then nothing I can say will change your mind. If you could see this from my perspective, you would see not only how far off you and many others are, you would also see that most of the arguments that have been offered in opposition, simply don't hold water. I can lead you through the thinking that brought me to the conclusion, but it seems I cannot persuade you to even see it from my perspective for even one moment, without your own perspective coming in to attempt to undermine it.

If you choose not to respond, it is your choice, but I think it is a crying shame that someone coming from a different perspective, is so often met with resistance, disbelief and even ridicule, even when presenting evidence to back up their perspective. All this discussion, and yet, it seems that nothing will change, because we're too willing to accept mediocrity, than we are to try something different and try for success.

There's already a bulletin 'shoehorned' in between the 8pm programme and the 9pm programme. It's a 1 minute update currently. All I suggested was extending that to 5 minutes, and cut the update just before 8pm. What's such a big deal about that?



Does that happen at the weekend, when 5 News is a single 5 minute update around about 9pm? No, it doesn't. So why should the weekdays be any different?



Well, why do you think I proposed a 5 minute update? I know Channel 5 will not give up a whole 30 minute slot to news in primetime, but they are already at the weekends, doing 5 minute updates around about 9pm, and those are not hurting their ratings, so why should a 5 minute update at 9pm on a weekday hurt them when it doesn't at the weekend?



Quite, but rather than have a 30 minute slot wasting away showing news that consistently gets 3rd place in news ratings and 5th place amongst the big 5, why not put something else there, and extend primetime? If they needed to do a 5 News special on a particular story, they could then use that 6.30 slot for the special, and postpone the regularly scheduled programme. Otherwise, it's pretty much a wasted slot right now.

I promised myself I wouldn't respond, but I just had to.

Your argument, evidentially, appears to be based on a survey carried out for the radio industry's benefit. It is limited in focus, has flaws in its methodology, and is simply there to allow a figure to point to so radio companies in the US can string out breaks for longer and longer. It's essentially a piece of spin at face value, and clearly you haven't spent the time to analyse it.

The rest of your argument is "you're wrong because I say so", which is there to counter my actual analysis of the survey, and poorly.

The bit explaining what an advert's purpose is was not relevant. It doesn't become relevant because you say it is. I was saying that radio and television are different. You said, essentially, that adverts are always there to advertise. Well done for stating the obvious.

Your sheer lack of analysis, comprehension, or understanding of evidence shows that you form an opinion first, and then find anything you think backs that opinion up.

Yawn

Where is your evidence for this? For some reason I can't download all of my overnights excel docs on my phone but from the ones I can see the figures for the early evening updates on Saturdays are half of those of the 15 mins immediately before it. The 9pm bulletin isn't listed as a separate programme.

Firstly Saturday nights aren't particularly important for C5, it's very rare they can air anything that airs over a million given that this is a night normally dominated by two channels. Weekday primetime is where the money lies for C5 and, again, 5 minutes at 9 isn't going to work. There's a reason why the current short updates are scheduled for 8:58 rather than 9 (often they're a few minutes earlier). C5 has recently become more dependent on casual viewers by airing more and more controversial programmes with noisy titles to draw people in. People channel flicking at 9 aren't going to stick around if what they're seeing isn't instantly grabbing them and a news programme, particularly if it's in the EPG, certainly isn't going to hold their grasp. It might if it was on the BBC but don't forget that C5 isn't a channel that people associate with quality news and that is never going to change, regardless of how much you schedule it in primetime.

The idea of "hammocking" isn't something that works for C5. Some of their most trailed shows have aired immediately after Big Brother so a huge (by C5 standards) audience is potentially available. They rarely stick around. Even when BB first began on C5 and they had a programme sandwiched between the first show and the eviction the audience halved. Audiences are fickle and only come to Channel 5 for particular shows, it's not a channel that people tend to watch for a whole evening and you'll see ratings for the 8, 9 and 10pm programmes often fluctuate accordingly.

EDIT: Just received last night's ratings and without +1 the 9pm update saw it drop from 700k to 490k.

I've always thought instead of having a 'proper' update, why not just have a ticker for X amount of time at the begining of a show. It would save viewers turning off.

To be fair I would have the news programmes at 530pm (and shunt the Australian soap hour to between 6pm and 7pm) and have a bulletin at 11pm

Channel 5 scheduled the Australian soaps to match as close as possible the times Neighbours and Home and Away were on BBC One/ITV. If they felt it required moving, they would've done it already.

Moving Home and Away in-particular would clash with C4's Hollyoaks who target the same audience.

As I've already stated I feel 'cityprod' has a point in that the 6:30pm News should be scrapped by Channel 5. It is too close to the more popular 5pm News programme and has to compete with far superior offerings from the BBC/ITV (as well as the News channels such as Sky News). However I feel instead of having a 5 minute update at 9pm, I'd personally like to see more 2 minute updates every hour within Primetime. I feel it would help with the flow of programming, though 'cityprod' certainly has a point about the Weekend 9pm bulletin working.

As for 'amosc100's point about maybe moving Neighbours/Home And Away, I agree with everything that 'Bic Basher' stated.

They may have the same target audience but they also have their own core fans which will move with programme. As it is Hollyoaks is repeated ad-inifitum with all the +1 channels and E4 showings etc etc also the same demographic audience with probably have a PVR and as such could easily record one or both programmes, like I do with Neighbours!

Anyway what is wrong with a bit of direct competition with the soaps, lets not forget that they are competing channels and as such both going for the maximum audience reach for the advertising revenue and the better lead in programme the more chance the audience will stay for the soap - in case of Channel 5 I, personally, believe they have the better lead in programme with "Neighbours" than what Channel 4 does with repeats of "The Simpsons."

Apologies for slightly going off topic!

They'd be an outcry if Corrie and EastEnders went up against each other. When Emmerdale has gone up against EE, it's dented EastEnders share considering the similar demographics.

When the talent shows have gone up against each other, one or the other will budge as fans will tend to watch both shows live.

However, even if Home and Away replaced 5 News Tonight, you still have the issue of where to schedule the peak bulletin, 6pm isn't viable, up against the BBC News at 6 and ITV's regional news bulletins and anywhere after 7pm loses C5 valuable advertising time.

While 6.30 isn't the best place to have a news bulletin for C5, it's the least worst option currently unless they can offer something else to meet the quota in peak.

Its nice to see a bit of behind the scenes from 5News & Simon Vigar on the Royal Tour in Australia, starting out on New Zealand.