ITV News

A good illustration of why the presenters have a blue backing sheet for their scripts:

http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/lucypaper.jpg

Lucy has been around long enough for us to know that she is sufficiently competent but I wouldn't be inclined to watch her on a daily basis. I prefer Romilly as the option when extra cover is required.

How very strange. I would guess that it was a quick decision for Lucy to present, especially as Alastair said on the LN that it would be Mary, but more for the fact that for the past few occassions that both Katie and Mary have been off Nina has presented the LN and the EN.

Wasn't it rumoured that Nina's maternity leave would start in June? Maybe she's gone now. It's rather strange that they picked on Lucy at short notice, given she is based in Manchester. I wonder if she was in London already? Mind you, the trains only take 2 hours to get from the North to London these days so she could have done it in an afternoon.

But why would she leave half-way through the day? She was on the LN and possibly could have stuck around a few more hours for the EN. Still surprised they had to get Lucy down from Manchester though.

Slight overexaggeration but I agree with that

I think Julie is alright but I don't think she should have been offered News at Ten straight away especially with the amount of female newsreaders they have.

Rumour has it that on numerous occasions she has been offered Mary's job but she has declined because she prefers Granada Reports so I think if ITV get their way and axe regions, Lucy will definitely be picked up by ITN. As I said earlier in the thread, it will be a sad day when she leaves Granada Reports, shes the closest ITV have to a female veteran having been there for almost 20 years.

People are suggesting she is Nina's cover. I sort of agree. I think Ninas role is going to be split between Lucy and Romilly when they are both available.

Lucy could well be still in London and present again tonight; Ann O'Connor is doing the lunchtime bulletin so she will be on tonights main show.

No lunchtime news trail here on UTV today, we got this instead...

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/images/tvf/itvnewstrail_vtclock.jpg

How? Romilly is awfully cold, miserable, dour and her voice is so unpleasant.

We got that on ITV1, though they've had a few delayed trails the past few weeks, but not this delayed. The problem with them starting delayed is the fact that they cut off the end of the trailer, or in this case it was cut half way through.

Daisy McAndrew on her new job and learning to self-edit:
http://www.newstatesman.com/economy/2008/06/alan-sugar-seriously-editor

Insignificant moment on this afternoons bulletin that made me smile a bit

Nina had finished reading the news and the credits were up and the usual zoom out etc. But they normally play along with it and pretend to shuffle their papers together neatly before sitting there just looking straight ahead until the bulletin has ended. Well she just did one quick shuffle then just slung them across the desk, and went on her computer for a bit

Incredibly pedantic, but I believe ITV use green screen, rather than blue. A very good illustration though!

They do use green for the VR stuff but if they did use blue, they wouldn't want blue backing sheets, would they? Otherwise, the VR background really would show up on the scripts!