ITV Local News

We got that on Granada aswell, albeit "You're watching Granada on ITV1", it sounded like Glen Thompsett too.

We had the same thing on Yorkshire. It was one of the generic announcements that go right back to when the national continuity first started on ITV1

For some reason London mustn't have provided a proper announcement so they had to use a generic one

All change to ITV regional news from Monday 4th June, then.

You'll find that the regional headlines at 13:30, 18:50 and 22:30 have been scrapped.

Also, no more handovers from and to the national programme from Grays Inn Road; the regional bulletins at 13:55 and 22:55 will become separate programmes and no longer part of the national bulletin.

so does that mean the national news will finish at 1.55pm and 10.55pm?

Yes.

Have you heard anything about why this decision has been made, Nick?

Seems a bit backward.

Nothing that I can report here as fact, I'm afraid.

This seems an odd move. ITV made quite alot out of the re-vamped national/regional news being part of the same organisation, with a unified look. A crucial element was the inclusion of regional headline inserts during the national programme.

I think perhaps this is the start of the seperation of these two once again. Allowing the regional magazines to move away from "hard news" and become simply a topical programme which fulfills the minimum Ofcom requirement.

I think you're right, there.

In the run-up to Central News at Six (West) becoming Central Tonight , Bob Warman & Co basically admitted that the programme isn't really a news programme anymore. (They said something to the effect of: "we're changing our name to Central Tonight next week, to reflect the fact that we're a more magazine-y programme nowadays", or similar).

I imagine that those ITVplc that still use " Region News " as their short bulletin title, will change to something more like the " Region Today/Region Tonight " formula in the near future. Thus paving the way for even the short bulletins to be as un-newsy as OfCom requirements will allow them to get away with.

Even Granada will probably revert to 1990s title " Granada Tonight ", for all evening bulletins, as the word "Reports" is also too newsy.

Thames Valley could do with dropping the current insanity of using " ...Today " for the 2255 bulletin IMHO, in favour of using the Today/Tonight variation in the same way that ITV West and ITV London do (and all other ITVplc regions who choose to adopt the Today/Tonight formula should use it that way too).

Clearly, ITV Wales are rather stuck for what else to call their daytime bulletins, as the BBC have first refusal over the "Wales Today" title. It seems a bit unclear as to whether the " ITV " bit counts as an 'official' part of the Wales News title or not. The title certainly sound better with the ITV bit, as just " Wales News " sounds odd. Perhaps their DOG and side plasmas could be amended to include the " ITV " bit, on the short bulletins (written in capitals, in the same plain white text as the rest of the title, rather than in "itv" logo style as in the title sequence)??

EDIT: I'm not sure what Border and Calendar should do (?).

I think ITV Wales News will have to do (no Today/Tonight appendage). As for Border (it is a region as well as a company name, so that's OK). Calendar would have to go in favour of Yorkshire Today/Tonight I suppose.

HTV Today?

The reason behind the change 'appears to be' a new broom at Grays Inn Road in charge of regional news and his wish to stamp a change on everything, just for the sake of it.

The 'official' reason has something to do with too many items being repeated on both the national and the regional bulletins; and the phrase "as you may have just seen" cropping up far too often, giving the regional bulletins a less than 'exclusive' feel.