Something I've been wondering for a while: in 2005 when ITV launched ITV Day, the lunchtime news relaunched into an hour-long 12:30 slot. Exactly what did they manage to fill a whole hour with? How long and where in the bulletin was the regional news?
TV-Ark suggests the programme returned to 1:30 in September 2006 - so did the hour long format last into the teal era?
They had "The Pulse", which was a phone in section IIRC, and also had special reports, while I think the regional news might have been 13 minutes rather than 7 as the 3pm afternoon bulletin was dropped around the same time.
They padded out the hour with junk features and filler. There was only roughly 20 mins of news (of varying importance) a plug for The Pulse section then a commercial break. Maybe another one or two stories, but usually a feature called "Life Matters" with the usual trash that infested ITV News at the time like the latest cancer treatments, miracle cures for xyz, etc etc. Then another Pulse plug, another break and The Pulse began for about 10 mins. A regional opt occurred for about 8 mins, then a headline recap and perhaps an 'And finally...' piece, headline recap and then the close.