Though if ITV were showing The Nightly Show last week things might have been very different.
I imagine quite a few people here who are whinging about ITVs lack of coverage are the same ones who whinged about their news being moved to 10:30!
Just highlights questionable priorities when ITV are paying guest hosts £50k a night to host a show watched by 2m but have no system in place should news break an hour after their last bulletin of the day.
My criticisms are because I value and appreciate ITV News and genuinely do think their coverage is on the whole preferable to the BBC when it comes to TV coverage at least.
Just highlights questionable priorities when ITV are paying guest hosts £50k a night to host a show watched by 2m but have no system in place should news break an hour after their last bulletin of the day.
Irrelevant. It's not one or another.
Plus you're assuming they don't have a system for that.
The "everybody's asleep at night" argument seems a bit weak. Surely by that reasoning, the BBC and Sky shouldn't have bothered all night and should have just put up a static picture of a flag or something until 6am because nobody is watching apparently.
Previously I would have said "sure, use the local news teams to start with" in the event of this kind of story. However, having seen an inexperienced looking journalist presenting a video report in which he speculated that there were "unconfirmed reports of two bombs" immediately after the attack, I think I'd rather they got it right than first. If that requires network to get into gear, so be it. That's not to say national always > local, but it's usually a guarantee of quality. The one area I would expect to get back on air to some degree is STV, which when the attack on Glasgow Airport happened (the last time we were at critical) had newsflashes during every single ad break on the night.
I'm a bit surprised that ITV couldn't get into gear for this. We all know everyone turns to the BBC in a national crisis. But it damages the station's name just to accept that, just like ITV can't just leave election coverage and the World Cup to the Beeb.
I'm inclined to be charitable to them in this situation though. There was a lot of confusion over what we were dealing with for some time after the incident, with people tweeting a mixture of gun shots/bomb/balloon exploding/equipment falling. It wasn't 100% clear whether it was a terrible accident or a targeted attack. It is a lot easier for online journalists to log back on immediately and gather all the information, and come back off depending on the severity of the situation. Off memory the death toll massively escalated at about 1am - I've never worked in TV production but I'm guessing it's going to take you a bit of time to get a show up and running from nowhere after that.
I would hope it's being reviewed though, because it shows a vulnerability in the event of overnight breaking news which could put people at threat, and for which important information may need to be relayed quickly. At the very least there should be the ability to throw a caption up and tell people in an affected region that something is going on.
The "everybody's asleep at night" argument seems a bit weak. Surely by that reasoning, the BBC and Sky shouldn't have bothered all night and should have just put up a static picture of a flag or something until 6am because nobody is watching apparently.
Well the BBC News Channel closes down and opts into BBC World and they do so at that time because nobody is watching. As far as I can see nothing particularly unusual happened on their coverage.
To those complaining about lack of overnight ITV coverage, if they'd come on air at 1am for 5 mins would you have been watching?
But how many people saw ITV twitter material overnight, either directly or retweeted by others? How many would have seen a caption on ITV?
MA
mannewskev
Definitely agree that ITV were sadly lacking. The potential viewing figures are neither here nor there to me, it's the perception this creates - that the country's main commercial PSB won't bother to react to a massive breaking news event on air until nearly 7 and a half hours after it occurred.
They did react, online just not on air. It isn't 1998, news extends to more than a news bulletin.
Maybe they should drop all online presence but air a 1 min bulletin at 3am. That would mean they would be on air which is obviously the important part.
By the way does anyone have proof they didn't air a bulletin at 3am?
MA
mannewskev
That's my point. Nothing on air. Nothing at all. For 7 and a half hours.
:-(
A former member
I really thought ITV would have come on early with GMB, even at 5am. You can't complain about the ITV local reporters saying there might have been two bombs, BBC and sky were also saying this.
I remember the Airport attack, STV had Louise white all evening before switching to Steven. With the Helicopter crash STV made extra effect aswell and had three extra long bulletins ie opting out of the ITV network over the weekend to cover that story better. This was a weekend but there managed it and there have a wealth of staff who can report or even read from the studio. STV also has senior reporter around at all times, along side the junior ones, so would expect the places of ITV regional network like Manchester or Brum to be the same.
BBC News Channel doesn't closes down at 00.00 it just switches over to another studio, Newsday comes from London and so does half the reports overnight. During big events NC and WN gets shot gun marriage to deal with the ongoing events, you still had local reporters on the ground.
