Election 2005 -Pre-Election discussion here

I agree with Cat here. So what if you won more awards than Sky or the BBC during the Iraq war, thats increasingly the exception. The truth is that Sky IS now the main alternative to the BBC for news. Instead of saying you feel hurt, why dont you offer an explanation as to why ITN sat back and allowed the original News at Ten to be axed, and replaced with the farce that ensued, leaving us now with the situation that the 10.30 bulletin is a complete shadow of its former self. Ratings are down massively compared with the early 90s, and the perception on alot of message boards on the net (and in the press) is that the programmes are dumbed down, and aimed at the lowest common denominator. I have no problems with certain sections of ITN; look at channel 4 news, a beacon of quality, yet it has a tiny budget compared to ITV, which endlessly churns out stories on diets, obesity, and other dumbed down non-entities. If you cannot see that for yourself, then its no wonder you feel hurt!

But if you compare ratings across the week as a whole, the BBC 99% of the time beats ITV. 5-6 million compared to ITVs 3million for the late evening bulletins, and for the early evening bulletins I think the gap is even wider

Did ITN really sit back about this though? It was a decision made by the ITV Network, and I think ITN did all they could to fight it. In the end, though, he who pays the piper calls the tune, and there wasn't much ITN could do to stop the network changing what is, after all, THEIR schedule.

Then you think wrong! Check the figures instead of making it up.

Taking the BBC 6 and ITV 6.30 the audience share usually splits 55% to 45% in favour of the BBC 6. For the latest week of figures on the BARB website it's 53% to 47%. It's not immediately clear which is the better time slot to occupy - the BBC benefits from going first, while arguably ITV benefits because there are probably more viewers watching TV at 6.30 than at 6.

Your figures for the BBC 10 are a little high as well. Highest figure in the latest week is just under 5 million, which is not untypical - figures for the 10 are regularly below those for the 6, but certainly the 10 enjoys a healthy advantage over the 10.30.

Either way, the idea that the ITV news service isn't being watched is absurd. The early evening figures are better than they've been for years, relative to the BBC figures.

Possibly, im not sure. Thats always the impression that I got. ITV is ITNs biggest customer so they'll obviously do whatever it takes to keep hold of the contract. Maybe 'newsman' will clarify this for us. Whatever is the case though, the fact is news at 10.30 is cr*p compared to its predecessor!

ok, i admit, maybe my figures were a little off, but having just looked at the terrestrial top 30 on the BARB site, for the week 6/3/05, the six o clock news averaged 5 million, ITVs evening news 4.5 million. For the 10, this also scored around 5 million, no data for ITVs 10.30 (in the past ive read its around 3 million) The fact is I was right in saying the BBC does better. I have not said anywhere that no-one watches ITV news, im not that stupid, I was making the point however that far less people watch compared to the BBC.

also I think its worth remembering that the Six gets a lead in of about 3.5 million from Neighbours, the local news on itv is lucky if gets a lead in of 2 million.

Like others have said, it was ITV's decision to axe News At Ten, nothing to do with ITN. ITN wanted to keep it going but it was the-then Director of Programmes, David Liddiment's decision. It was he who wanted to put programmes like TV's Naughtiest Blunders on for, what was then, Britian's most watched news bulletin.
But, I was one of the people who put News At Ten back on the air. Everybody where I work want to be working for 'ITN' rather than 'ITV News'.
I admit it was ITV who damaged ITN.
It wanted an 11pm bulletin - we didn't.
It wanted to get rid of Trevor McDonald as the face of ITV news - admitted behind the scenes but never admitted over the news wires.
The news budget has been cut by ITV. Why? Because, under the new ITV management, it secretly does want to have its own news service and not one from an independent arm of ITV.

Well that certainly explains some of the comments Charles Allen has been making! Thanks for the insight

Getting back to the TV Elections coverage, ITV News are in talks to have see which reporters work for the election campaign. The only official word is that all the political correspondents - probably Peter Murphy from ITV News Channel as well.

En Anglais, monsieur?

Peter Murphy isn't from the ITV News Channel - he's IRN Political Editor and mans the IRN Political desk in the morning - but he's recently been doing the biz for the ITV News Channel.

I think Peter will be very busy providing analysis for IRN on election night. Though no doubt a lot of audio will be taken from ITV coverage on the night.