ITV News

I would welcome the ITV News Channel back as it seems that now it has gone BBC News 24 and Sky News have taken over bits of it's legacy.

Personally I would move the ITV Lunchtime News back to 12:30 and create a new ITV News Afternoon programme.

This new ITV News programme would essentially be a rolling news service between 14:00 - 17:00 broadcast on ITV1 only.

Basically it would follow the old ITV News Channel format - maybe 'With Alastair Stewart' with less of the political bias and some more of the rolling news criteria.

It would feature extended reports of the day, studio guests and debates, live press conferences etc. Just like the ITV News Channel used to be in the daytime.

There would also be greater intergration of the ITV regions supplying material and live reports from around the country which would be more than a token look at three ITV regions each day at 15:20!

I feel there is enough 'news' each day for a three hour slot to be sufficiently filled and would reinforce the ever-diminishing ITV News brand.

The 17:00 slot could be filled by a one hour drama, gameshow or even 60 Minute Makeover.

The News Channel is long gone I'm afraid. It's problems were far larger than scheduling, and in fact it was quite smart on scheduling introducing formats that were copied by others. Basically they had no money. And 24 hour news is a very expensive business.

And as far ITV spending 350 million on news. Er no. Not now not ever.

The ITV Network news budget is less than a tenth of that figure.

I cant see ITV1 having 3 hours of news on weekday afternoons.

Why not? Noting much else performs well in that slot?

Might aswell utilise resources that you already have lying around - at least try it out and see how well it fairs?

The last I checked ITV pay ITN about £34 Million per year for the ITV News service, I'm not certain how much Regional News costs (including STV, UTV and Channel), but the NC only cost about £2 Million to run, albeit on existing resources, just a shame the channel never got that back in advertising.

I wonder if things would be different if Grade either started earlier or if ITV kept the channel longer? Allen was a very pro-business man and shut the NC down for the main reason that it wasn't getting enough money and space on the DTT spectrum is very valuable.

It's too late to bring back an ITV News Channel, although I don't see anything wrong in upping the Online content of the service.

I wonder what will happen at the end of next year aswell, as that is when ITV's contract with ITN will run out, I've seen in the past few days reports indicating that ITV would be happy to carry on getting the News from ITN, but Allen also made the point that he would either gain 100% control of ITN or simply get ITV to produce the News themselves.

In these days of declining audiences and revenues, one of the two would make sense, especially for a business such as ITV.

You have entirely misquoted JayKingDoire there. What he actually said was:


The reference to a "corporation which spends £350 million on news" was clearly talking about the BBC, not ITV.

I just cant see them doing it. They would more likely bring back CITV.

I can't believe that the viewing figures for ITV1 on weekday afternoons (however bad) are quite as bad as most news channels average on a normal day. So that, plus the fact that switching a national terrestrial network into a rolling news operation for afternoons at a time just doesn't fit in with the ITV rationale or demographic means that it I can't see that ever happening. Michael Grade seems to be trying to restore ITV as a major force in UK broadcasting as an innovative and popular mainstream entertainment channel. His first major programming decision to write off weekday afternoons to rolling news would not be a good one!

And I doubt that the human "resources" at Grays Inn Road would appreciate being described as "lying around"!

EDIT: Another thought. After the debacle of News at Ten and News at When, I suspect that Michael Grade will think long and hard before making rash decisions on anything to do with ITV News!

Three hours of news in the afternoon on terrestrial TV is never going to work!

Agree the Lunchtime should move back to 12.30pm - personally I'd opt for a short 15-20 minute "Afternoon News" at 3pm at most.


I'd love the ITV News Channel to return, but it's not going to happen in the short term at least. The only way I can see it returning is if ITV are permitted to put all their regional news on the channel after digital switch-over.

I dont think ITV's early afternoon schedule does that badly for viewers does it? Its the later afternoon from 5pm-6pm that sometimes has poor viewing figures.

That was precisely my point.

A 3-hour rolling news programme on ITV1 would lose more viewers than it would gain. Apart from anoraks, who would stay tuned for the whole programme? Once the average person has seen all the news in the first hour, they're going to switch over. However, I do think they should bring back the ITV News Summary in the afternoon - the BBC has one, so I don't see why ITV can't. Just 5-10 minutes with local news would be ideal.