Bradby at Ten

'funnier than the BBC' - I'm sorry but should the news be funny in any sense of the word? Aside from that it just shows how petulant and childish he is - 'rather shoot himself', 'it's boring' - seriously is he 12 or something. Not only are his comments incredibly childish and unprofessional, anybody can detect the 'I wasn't picked for the BBC political editor job and a better journalist did' undertones. Furthermore, when this ITV relaunch goes down, i.e. within about a year, he's, a tad ironically, just shot his leg off in terms of future career prospects.

Plus his comments are untrue - the BBC's political coverage is far better and more informative than ITV's coverage, Agenda is just a **** Question Time and their election coverage was just dreary and dull - but then he was fronting all of those, so maybe Peston will do a better job.

I share much of the sentiment on the tone of Bradby's comments but I am quite glad ITN are standing up and fighting to own the 10 slot once again. Competition on both sides can only be good news for viewers. And from my understanding, many of these changes have come from Bradby.

Now we just need ITV to realise ITN's efforts will be futile if they keep shunting the bulletin about the schedules...

Oh wow he is ever so slightly unhinged.

The aim to be "funnier" does seem odd at first but there is very much a place for it in broadcast news, whether it's the C4 News hosts fighting with light sabres or Pax man getting increasingly annoyed at reading the weather. The aim I guess is to treat the audience with the intelligence to appreciate the occasional lighter touch.

1. "I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the BBC." Which is why this is the second time in as many months where Bradby is ranting about the BBC, the first being that long assault on the BBC in The Sunday Times a few months ago and why he makes at least 5 criticisms against the BBC in this piece.

2. "BBC News is boring." That's why itv went "to the ends of the earth" to get the "boring" Robert Peston then.

And he actually personally went to John Whittingdale, David Cameron and George Osborne complaining about the BBC News at Ten? Seriously?

If Bradby spent more time getting on with his job rather than firing off anti-BBC tirades, perhaps his bulletin would improve. Ridiculous pomposity. A lot was made of Huw Edwards making an ill-judged boastful tweet about ratings a few months ago but it's nothing compared to Bradby's sustained attacks and hostility in the press. In fact, I'm pretty sure Edwards is on record as wishing itv News at Ten "well".

Agree completely with you chris.

As wonderful as Mark and Julie were there's no denying News at Ten became stale last year - fewer investigations, fewer special reports, more packages repeated from the 6:30, etc. Much as I detest Bradby's arrogance, these changes really have reinvigorated News at Ten. I watched it in full last night for the first time in a while - pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

I don't quite agree that the BBC should 'strategically retreat' (or whatever the phrase was) from 10pm. Yes, giving competitors some 'breathing space' is all well and good, but I'm not sure influencing government ministers to move one of our most-watched news programmes is necessarily in the public interest. The only thing I find myself agreeing with Bradby on is the BBC's use of 'News at Ten'. It's been so well established in Britain as an ITV name - McDonald, Burnet, bongs, Big Ben etc etc etc - that it just seems like an unnecessary 'hijacking' of another channel's brand. The Ten O'Clock News as a brand, to me, oozes gravitas and authority, so why the BBC has all but got rid of it is beyond me.

The BBC branding does seem to swing back and forth - the main argument they'll have for using the "...at Ten" suffix is that it emphasises BBC News as a brand. ITV of course have just gone the other way by rebranding the ITV News at 6.30 back to the ITV Evening News.

Interested to see the next phase of this rebrand play out though and just hope they don't screw it up. Also seems Tom Bradby has found himself pretty influencial at ITN.

The same reason they got rid of News 24 - it stops people saying "BBC News". The "BBC News at Ten" cements the brand of "BBC News" at the heart. The "BBC Ten O'clock News" put's the "BBC" as the main brand, with News a secondary element.

(N24 going because people were calling it News 24, not BBC News 24, completely excluding the BBC)

Marketing droids basically.

I do think BBC News as a brand is stronger than ever and I don't blame them for utilising that in their programme names. Whether renaming News 24 played a part of it would have happened with the growth of the internet anyway we'll never know.

But the BBC are clever enough to ignore marketing bods who no doubt would love to rename the regions BBC News North West etc. like ITV have done. The brand North West Tonight is too strong to destroy and I think ITV were foolish to diminish the majority of the regions' well-recognised titles like London Tonight.

We're digressing...sorry!

My point was that it doesn't emphasise the 'BBC News' brand if they're going to refer to their 10pm news as 'News at Ten':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35060103

...plus this bit from the Standard article:

Although this all goes back to 1999 - the first thing Sky did was launch Sky News at Ten, while IIRC BBC News 24 beefed up their 10pm bulletin too, though not sure if it was branded as the BBC News at Ten.

It will be interesting to see whether the bulletin retains the ITV prefix - in 2008 it just went for "News at Ten" but obviously less than two years later it was bought back in under the ITV News brand. I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens here - the current look is three years old so probably destined to be replaced in a couple of years or so.

I wasn't aware of this, do we know this for certain? If it is true that is a disgusting abuse of position and put's him on a par with Murdoch. It is quite frankly disgraceful to go running to the government to winge about this knowing full well the government is hostile to the BBC and looking for any excuse possible to bash it. If a BBC employee, hell even a BBC executive, went to the government to complain about their opponents they would have the door slammed in their face, criticised heavily in the right-wing press and end up having to tender their resignation. The Anti-BBC cabal grows larger by the day.

Furthermore the 'BBC News at Ten' branding has been in place since 2008 and even that was a revision from the 'BBC News at Ten O'Clock' from 2007. ITV made a tactical error in 1999 and the BBC took the advantage. Nobody has bought up that Bradby's Agenda (I think we all know his real agenda) is nought but a sh*t rip off of Question Time. ITV are acting like the Unionists in Northern Ireland, acting like they've never done anything wrong while criticising their opponents for something that they have also done.