ITN at Gray's Inn Road

I've wondered this for a while; where is everything situated in the ITN building?

From watching London Tonight (Studio 8 I believe) I know Channel 4 news is based directly below the LT studios, but on what floor is it?

I've also always thought that the newsroom is next to Studio 8, but from watching briefings on ITV News coming from the newsroom, there appears to be an entrance of some sort in the background so Im under the assumption that this is actually on the ground floor now, and not next to London Tonight. Unless there are different newsrooms and the LT one is next to their studios.

What studio does ITV News come from? Judging by the size of the studio and the set, I assume it's on the ground floor, but again I'm not sure.

And what about the rest of the building? I've heard ITV plc is there somewhere but are there other studios or is it just offices?

Thanks for any help.

Well, I belive the London Tonight studio may actually be on the ground floor (as during the 1996-9 era you could see cars going past on ITN News bulletins). So Channel 4 would be on 'Lower Ground Floor' perhaps? ITV News is currently in the basement. ITV Network Centre is situated there (I couldn't tell you if ITV Plc. is). Reuters and IRN are there as well, and I assume a few other tennants.

This domain belongs to ITV Network Limited
http://www.itv.org.uk/

however it points to itv.com

ITV Network Centre is based at Grays Inn Road, ITV Plc is based at The London Studios.

I mentioned this the other day in the ITV London News thread, but what studio does the Weather come from? As I was watching London Today at Lunchtime and noticed that Chrissie was in the LT studio, fifteen seconds later she comes into the Normal Weather studio + graphics.

Also a couple of other things? What is based in the 1999-2004 ITV News studio? As the last I heard it was 'The Breifing'/ virtual graphics room. And what comes from the defunct Five News studio?

I'm thinking that's an illusion of pre-recorded weather - and it looks bloody awful they way she walks in like that. In my opinion, of course.

Coudln't agree more, its annoying as she usually starts to talk and of course blocks the picture.

As I understand it. London Tonight and C4 news come from studios around the aitruim (converted office space as opposed to purpose built studios). The London Tonight studio is the one adjacent to the newsroom on the ground floor which used to be the studio for ITV news: http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvnews/itvnews/itnearlyeveningnews1996a.jpg and then the ITN News channel: http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/itnnewschannel/itnnewschannel2001c.jpg
Obviously the orientation of the studio is different, in those 2 shots the desk is on the left next to the aitrium, now the seating area is furthest away from the walkway/aitrium (as can be seen by the very wide shot of the London Tonight studio that the use half way through the programme. The Channel 4 studio looks like it is much higher, possibly on the 2nd floor, although the building is deceptive; the site was formally The Times building which had a a printing plant in the basement, hence the ITN building has very large basements

ITV News currently comes from one of the 2 purpose-built 'proper' studios in the basement.

IIRC from the early days of Channel 5 News (when they used to show exterior shots of the studioand newsroom), their studio was in office space at the front of the building

Indeed, IIRC the 5 news studio + newsroom was on the ground floor, the studio facing into Gray's Inn Road and reception (via the great fish tank!).

ITV News room also on ground floor - with London Tonight studio there too, in place of old ITN News Channel studio.

Channel 4 News is one down studio-wise.

ITV news is one below that - Lower Basement - through some corridors, towards the back of the building is the main studio + the cso (well at least the old cso studio). This lower basement also had the main canteen / cafe on it, plus the postroom round the back.

That lower ground also used to have LBC / IRN - i presume IRN is still there?

Upper floors have the ITV network centre + other organisations.

ITV is a profit making company, so they should not own a domain with a suffix meant for non-profit organisations.

They have probably registered it like most companies do to all their domains to protect their names and IP from cyber squatters and "abusers" who could tarnish the brand or use it to peddle unsuitable material for their own gain. I'm sure any medium to large company would do this to protect their online identity. It's like the BBC who have registered www.bbc.co.uk, www.bbc.com, www.bbc.net.uk, www.bbc.org.uk, www.bbc.tv etc.

Put yourself in ITV's shoes - would you be happy if someone else bagged the domain for your company and started to advertise porn off it, or redirected it to a site that prompted a user to install questionable material? Or even worse, would you like it to redirect to some site which slagged off ITV in a big way?

Don't think you'd be happy, would you. So that's why companies should have (and excuse the cheesy business phrase - but after all it's 4am on Sunday morning) all bases covered when it comes to domains.

Remember Microsoft vs. MikeRoweSoft case? The bloke that owned the domain was forced to hand it over to Microsoft because it sounded like it.

Remember EasyGroup (or whatever the umbrella organisation responsible for the "Easy" brand is) caused a rumpus when they started legal action to claw back domains from companies who had the word "Easy" or "Ez" or a soundalike combination thereof in their domain name.

Granted some maybe heavy handed or slightly unreasonable in doing so (the ones about MikeRoweSoft and Easyjet are a bit extreme IMO). It's companies protecting their brand name, identity and IP, which in this online age is very important.

In that case, I shall rephrase what I said earlier, and add some further detail . . .

ITV is a profit making company, they shouldn't use a domain name with a suffix meant for non-profit organisations.
Fair enough, if they want to buy up all available domains with the "ITV" name to protect their intellectual property,
but they really shouldn't use a non-profit web domain name for the purpose of hosting a mirror of their website.

As for your weather question, very often if Martin is presenting the national forecast, he will do it from the Meridian studios at Whiteley in Hampshire and send it up to ITV TX playout on the South Bank which is where the top and tail sponsor tags are played out from. Yes, amazing as it is, ITV TX still have a hold on the sponsor of all programmes, and where possible, will play it out as a stand alone item.