Andrea Catherwood tipped to replace Trevor McDonald

A brief article appeared in our local TV guide (Daily Post) today which caught my eye:



I've not seen it elsewhere but the Daily Post often pick up media stories before I've seen them in the national press - but this just seems to ring true with me.

Although no official date for Trevor leaving has been announced, when ITV News relaunched 11 months ago it was said Trevor had signed a one-yr contract to front the 10.30pm bulletin. His plans to retire have been widely reported since then.

But the biggest indicator in my opinion is signing Nina Hossain to cover for Mary Nightingale on the Evening News. All year Andrea had done the job and many were surprised that she wasn't chosen as maternity cover.

The Evening News is ITV's highest rated bulletin and Mark Austin has settled in there, especially with his location presenting and I'd be surprised if Mary Nightingale returned from maternity leave wanting to host a late-night news bulletin.

Nicholas Owen is settled at Lunchtime, and although very respected, he lacks the heavyweight journalism associated with the later bulletins. None of the other regular fill-in newsreaders seem cut out for a permanent role on the Ten Thirty, while I don't think ITV would give the job to Andrew Harvey or Alistair Stewart.

The only other possibility is Katie Derham IMO, a regular fill in on the bulletin, but it would be strange for ITV to sideline her one year, then make her their flagship newsreader the next.

So that leaves just one person: Andrea Catherwood. A regular newsreader on ITV1, a respected journalist for ITN and the brief experience of being the face of 5 News.

So you heard it here first: Andrea Catherwood will replace Trevor McDonald on the ITV News at Ten Thirty.

(Obviously, if this turns out not to be true I'll deny any knowledge of this post!)



P.S. With a major change in presenter usually comes a slight change in format. With the ITV News revamp only a year old, I can't see many major changes arising from Trevor leaving. I guess the main difference is the 10.30pm bulletin will make better use of the theatre of news without Trevors poor legs.

In my humble opinion, it would be a mistake for Andrea Catherwood to become the 10.30er. Personally, as good as she may be to an extent, I find her rather boring and characterless.

I am firmly of the belief that if you look at Trevor McDonald on paper, he is rubbish. Yet he is brilliant - I have no idea how or why, but that's a widely accepted fact. Same with Peter Sissons. He has character and presence. Andrea Catherwood does not.

I have always liked Andrea, I've always liked her character and presence too, plus I did the way she handle a muck up on the ITV News Channel after mistakingly saying Gordon Blair (instead of Brown of course), by saying something along the lines of 'what a freudian(sp?) slip'.

I would like to see her being tested on the 10:30 to see how she performs on the programme. And I would like to see the theatre of news used more on the late bulletin, it's a shame that they don't, though I can understand it.

I think I can only remember Sir Trev standing stationary at the start, and that was it, whether he's done a link in the first report I'm not sure, but others do use it better.

I presume it goes on what the producer of the programme wishes to do.

I would love to see different agendas to each programme, possibly with different reports and different ways of reporting things.

At the moment each programme looks the same, they feel different as Nicholas usually stands up throughout (though last week he was seated for the majority), Mark & Mary/Nina do a bit standing up and Sir Trev sits down.

It would be interesting if they did use Andrea, and I can't see what else they will do, unless they move Mark to 10:30, and have an all female 6:30, though as Brekkie Boy says he's made the 6:30 his own, or maybe they'll bring in somebody new, or take somebody from the News Channel, they may even bring someone like Peter Sissons over or try and get Dermot back from the BBC.

Plus didn't Trevor lengthen his contract if I remember rightly so that he would leave at the end of this year?

Lunchtime News -
Nicholas Owen/James Mates
Evening News -
Mark Austin/Steve Scott & Mary Nightingale/Leyla Daybelge
News at Ten Thirty -
Katie Derham/Bill Neely/Felicity Barr
Weekend News -
Steve Scott/Felicity Barr/Andrea Catherwood

This line-up would give some of the NC presenters which currently only do the Weekend News to shine on ITV1, especially Steve Scott and Leyla Daybelge on the Evening News.

John

I would like to see Katie Derham doing the 10.30 news my self.

I too would favour Katie Derham, but then we do have Ms Derham ear-marked for the hour-long Lunchtime News about which there was earlier speculation.

Brekkie Boy, was the extent of the brief article literally the one line you have quoted? (TIA).

I don't rate Andrea Catherwood in the slightest. Katie gets the thumbs up from me - totally wasted on London Tonight.

Sir Trevor McDonald is spectacularly dull and massively overrated. He makes George Alagiah look exciting and animated.

And don't get me started on Peter Sissons. Character and presence are two things he is most assuredly lacking - unless you associate those two things with continual mis-reading of the autocue, pregnant pauses during interviews, blubbering and blustering about with his dreadful ad libs to hand over to Sport or Weather, and his complete and overwhelming inability to cope with breaking news.

I actually pray to God to hold off any world events likely to be mentioned as breaking news until after Sissons' shift is over, because listening to the man trying to tell you that something terrible or interesting has just happened is like watching an asthmatic turtle trying to run for a bus.

Well that's the point I was making although I phrased it rubbishly as I was very tired at the time and couldn't be bothered to write a post that wasn't lazy.

I've always said that Trevor McDonald is rubbish - if anything were to go wrong, he is a rabbit in the headlights of an Audi. His facial expression is emotionless - I think it may be controlled by an on/off switch on his back. Yet at the same time he attracts audience and attention - he does have a character and he does have presence somehow. Peter Sissons is also not very good. It's as though he's presenting for the first time EVERY time. Putting him on News 24 was a decision akin to the launch of the Sinclair C5.

But in my opinion Andrea Catherwood is "alright" but more than that, I'm hard pushed to say really.

I think that would be great, i remember watching her doing the 10-30 one night and thinking she would be perfect for this, plus it means the mark & mary partnership (which IMO works very well- when shes there) doesn't have to be broken up.

Are you kidding? Andrea Catherwood must be the worst newsreader ITV have. She is so self conscious and phoney. And what happened to her Irish accent? She has mysteriously ditched it in the last few months. In my view if she was highly regarded inside ITN they wouldn't have recruited Nina Hossein.

And I think just about every ITV Newsreader has, at some point, been "heavily tipped" to succeed Sir Trevor.

If Mark Austin doesn't get the 10.30, I'll be very surprised.