ITV News

Hopefully never. I don't mean to be harsh, but it appears that she only remains there at ITV News is because of her 'connections' - a bit like Fiona Phillips at GMTV.

After rooting through my grandparents house recently, I came across several Betamax videotapes. Last night, I dusted off my Betamax video recorder - yes, I still have one - and came across, from start to finish, an entire ITN News bulletin, albeit poor quality! It shocked and suprised me!
Now, the picture is jumpy and snowy throughout but you can just about make out where the newscasters Reginald Bosanquet and Gordon Honeycombe are saying. I was trying to guess the date with the news stories until, at the end, Reginald was reminding us of the headlines, or "The main points again" and then he said.."And, Elvis Presley is dead. Or is he? Goodnight" Obviously, I am no Elvis Presley fan, but I know he died on 16th August 1977.
Some explaining must be done: During the 27 minutes of news, only about 10 minutes of it is either audible or visible. During that time, you can hear Reginald correct himself - during this you can hear the words "singer, hospital" and "correction".
I thought I might share this information albeit sounding and looking like absolute rot.
If anyone wants, I will attempt to put it up here. Admittedly, though, it is pointless watching it seeing as it is the videotape is in such a bad state.
Apologies for the rambling!

It would be great to get the beginning and the end on here....little if any bulletins of reggie and or gordon are on youtube....

Mark Austin is second to none on location... despite 'ooh, i nearly fell off my little hill' on NaT. Seriously though, NaT last night was excellent.

I agree. I don't particularly like him presenting in the studio but he makes up for it on location. My one bugbear - why does he always sign off with "Good night.....and thank you for watching"? It annoys me how he doesn't finish on 'goodnight' - it doesn't sound right. It should be: "Thank you for watching; goodnight."

That is true he does always say that! I suppose he wants his own memorable sign-off (American-style). I guess having it the more 'wrong-sounding' way round kinda makes it more memorable as "His" sign-off rather than just a normal expression? But yes having goodnigt at the end sounds far better.

The reason for this is that, during the bulletin, they received the news on the wires that Elvis was dead, and announced it, but two minutes later there was a further bulletin that said Elvis was in hospital, which confused everyone. Hence Reggie's weird sign-off.

What happened was that the "Elvis in hospital" story had been sent first, but they almost immediately followed it with "Elvis is dead" and made that high priority, so it arrived at ITN first.

That's in the book they published to mark the end of News at Ten the first time, which also says that, thirty seconds after the announcement of his death, they were already wondering if he was still alive.

Faye Barker is to be the new host of the ITV Morning News:

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42774&c=1

Glad to hear that

I thought the Evening News was particularly good today. I liked the way Katie led the bulletin in London with Mark adding his piece from the Middle East.
Presumably it would have reverted to the main part of the bulletin coming from the outside broadcast had there been significant developments in Gaza, but in my opinion it works better and feels more cohesive the way it was today.

News at Ten was also very good - Julie Etchingham really is proving herself to be the best signing ITV have made in years.

A shame she couldn't be the replacement for Nina and Romilly.

Faye Barker is good, but not really mainstream national news material, in my opinion. She would be good on the Morning News but I get the feeling she wouldn't suit the 6:30 bulletin. I don't really have a problem with Romilly's presenting style but Nina (for some random reason) really irritates me. Time and again I say this, but ITN really should have tried poaching Andrea Catherwood back to be their main weekend newscaster.