The Future of News

Ok, so David Manion has stated in an interview with The Observer that appointment -to-view news is here to stay, but 24 hour news has a limited shelf life. I just wanted to gather opinions of the forum of his statement, particularly the comment over rolling news.

Whist Sky News was seen as the future of news in 1989 - it was seen as news on demand - is it still the future? I personally, don't see rolling news as the future, but as the present, the hear and now. Rather than replacing ATV news, it has merely complimented it.

It's no longer news on demand - due to the fact that 'red-button', podcasts and internet news, which IMO is more 'on demand'.

What about ATV news - I think that its very much here to stay - but I also favour the 60 second/ five news update shows, which seems to bring news on demand to a wider audience.

Radio news and tv news have worked side by side for years, will interactive news fit in with them and replace rolling news?

Over to you - what is the future of television news?

The future of news is a good question!

With all that has been happening on all channels, I think the challenge would be to stop audiences from dropping. When Sky Sports News is beating Sky News, and possibly BBC News 24, then that should ring alarm bells.

Regional news is also going to pot, just look at Scotland Today. I am not sure if we'll have as much investment in local news in years to come, or if we'll even have local news in years to come.

I wonder if as many people would march in George Square, as what they did when STV threatened to pull the plug on Take the High Road in the early nineties. Sadly - I think not!!

That's another issue - regional news - hadn't thought of that.

Well I thought this was the future of news thread - not the future of network news. You should have labelled this in more detail if you wanted to be specific.

As for network news, well I think that they'll be more entertainment led in the future with shorter bulletins, I think that through time 24 hour news channels may be the main forces of news. I do not think that ITV News will be a strong force, as the ITN brand has been weakened significantly over the past few years. I think the BBC will continue to be the network leader!

No, no - this is a thread for the general direction of news in the future - I'd just forgotton about regional news - mind you its very easy to do that nowadays!

I think it's more a statement of convenience than anything else - I'm sure when ITN were fighting to keep the ITV News Channel as little as three months ago they thought there was a considerable future in 24 hour news.


One interesting point he raised was how regional news programmes rate far better than 24 hour news channels, something I'd never really considered.