ITV News

what a load of bull - i dont care if Alistair Stuart reads the news or someone unknown like Gordon Radley on Sky! What I do care about is getting a decent news service, full of facts, indepth analysis and reports, the mimimal amount of celebrity sh*te, and events screened as they are happening, which, itv news just cannot produce! David Mannion said the news channel would be beating n24 within 6 months of launch and Sky within a year - this hasnt, and will not happen. The exception being freeview where it does beat sky, but now theyve removed the service from the platfom which was clever thinking wasnt it

If you were a person who watches a news channel, surely, during the time the news channel is off air on DTT, you would watch the alternatives and therefore the faces on these wil become more familiar, so why the hell would you just stop watching because itvNC has popped up again?

As for the EPG position arguement, whilst it probably does hold some ground, id say the reason most people go either for sky or news 24 because they are established brands that they know have means to deliver the news at a decent and consistent standard, and itv is so hit and miss

The errors day in, day out on the News Channel are in my view why it will never compete. The writing is poor. Scripts never seem to be updated. The kind of slackness that wouldn't be tolerated at Sky or the BBC.
Then there are the persistent technical problems - wrong capgens, presenters coming into vision at the wrong time, bad framing and lighting. Etc., Etc.

And I agree that the big name presenters are irrelevant.

Did he? Can you point to a source that backs that up?

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,7558,1130913,00.html

Absolutley agree. The presentation is inconsitent, and half the time, the breaking news background isnt even up, with just the plain squares. Camera angles are miles away half the time, and going into breaks isnt conistent. The newswall could be very effective, but they way they are using it just isnt working, and the four squares behind the presneter doesnt work on the News Channel.

Ah yes, thanks - I couldn't remember him putting a timescale on things.

...Luke eats humble pie.

Another thing that bugged me today when watching alistair stuart was the fact that at around 11.20, having just came in from an ad break, we then have about 5 mins of rushed UK today, and then another break, which must have only been 5mins after the last one. Obviously im not suggesting that ITV have more ad breaks per hour than Sky, or that they have breaks literally every 5 mins, but there does seem to be more breaks per hour, and also, sky are far more willing to drop a break to focus on the news, whereas ITV seem as though they cannot wait for the next one so they can change studios or presenters!

Also, I agree with the other issues raised - there are far to many mistakes and 'cock-ups', plus the newswall could do so much more. Ive always thought that whilst technically it is fantastic, practically it has very little use, as most of the time the presenters have no idea where to look, it crashes quite alot, and, if we're honest, how often is it that you see the newswall being used LIVE. On sky you can almost guaruntee a newswall feature every hour, whereas ITV seem to use the same recorded segement over and over again - oh and dont get me started on recylcing news at 10.30 on occaisons like local and by- elections, and presedential debates for a channel supposed to break news for britain!.

Plus, because unlike sky, the newswall is so vast, the cameras have to be zoomed right out, making it difficult to see who is acctually speaking, again, not good for presentation.

I think of the ITVNC as a poor mans sky - they have copied alot of elements of the sky presentation, but just done it to a much lower standard (ie floor maps, flat, uninspired slug and graphics, live with alistair stuart being a clone of sky news today etc)

Im sure if i could acctually watch the channel at the moment (thanks freeview!) i could comment on the positives, but since its so hard for me to remember anything positive exce[t beslan from memory, i cant!

Well I was quite suprised that this week we saw Lucy present all FIVE of the 6pm bulletins and at least 3 late bulletins on ITV Wales, considering she has been in London all weekend for the ITV News channel. She was on the ITV NC until midnight on Sunday, but was back in Cardiff to present the 3pm bulletin on Monday. I doubt she will be on the news channel this weekend as she will probabaly need some time off!

I think that's likely because they probably missed a break somewhere. Alistair usually has some high profile guests on his programme and interviews them at length, rather than interrupt an interview in the middle they run longer segments. Obviously what you saw was them catching up on an ad break following an earlier guest ?

Just my observation.

God knows what was happening on the nc this morning. I turned it on @ 7 to see Hannah Stewart-Jones doing the hour (well half an hour) then at half past seven they repeated the half hour over again.

Had a look at a copy of Broadcast yesterday. A moderately interesting interview, but it didn't really say anything new.

Unsurprisingly Crossley-Holland made a lot of the channel's Boscastle and Beslan coverage as examples of what they can achieve.

His line is that February's revamp should be seen as the real launch of the channel, so it is only 6 months old when compared to the competition.

He did concede that they still have a lot of work to do on the channel, but he claims that they are very, very ambitious for it.