ITV News

Right my initial over reaction is that I'm not keen on the News at Ten-'isation' of the bulletin. I prefer News at Ten to be distinctive from the rest of the output. (yes I know it has it's own titles)

The studio doesn't look nearly as nice in daylight conditions, and I think the over emphasis on London for the backdrop is a mistake. The frosted glass clock face doesn't really work here in my opinion.

We'll see how London looks during dusk in the Evening News.

Agreed - somehow the close-up a bit 'ITV Day' and not very news-like.

The two-shot is fine, though, as there's enough of a clock face for the concept to be legible.

I'm of mixed opinion really. I knew that there wouldn't be any music or graphic changes, as I'd said on here a couple of times over the last week, so I wasn't expecting anything. However, it is a disappointment that they have kept the same, tired music. I do like the new backdrop and I think it was important to tie the other bulletins in with News at Ten. However, the perspective is still not right and this is especially visible on the overhead shot. I'm also disappointed that they've dropped the mid titles animation - as a result, the opening sequence doesn't have much impact at all.

However, I do like the fact that they have refreshed things a little and I like the colours used. I think the close-up shot of each presenter is very reminiscent of the old pre-1995 Lunchtime News and 1995-1999 bulletins.

The individual shots are great, but the two presenter shots don't really work for a story without a graphic in the middle.

I think I'd rather they ditched the opening sting completely if they aren't updating them and just had a studio shot to start off the bulletin, but without the crafty camera work we saw in the early days of the Theatre of News it's all a bit wasted really, though News at Ten still manage a nice enough swoop across the studio.


Hopefully over the next few weeks they'll realise that the graphics package should be updated too - but why can't they realise these things before they "relaunch", rather than afterwards.

Thanks for all the caps, I do love the view .


Are the flashes emanating from the ITV News logo used on the News at Ten? That seems vaguely familiar but it has been a while since I have paid attention to the overly long intro of that bulletin . I thought they worked really well on the Lunchtime News.
The title sequence was certainly brief but I'm glad they haven't gone for a variation on the News at Ten's flight along the Thames.

The background colours on the close-ups are a little light and will no doubt look better during the evening bulletin.
Overall I like it and prefer it to the News at Ten set.


p.s. Is it safe to assume that ITN/ITV News don't have the necessary rights to allow them to tweak the initial people on the clock-face sequence as technically it would be easy to make it a little more blue?
(Edit: I have just noticed that it matches the floor so perhaps it was only me that ever wanted to change it).

They could tweak the opening however much they wanted - indeed I think they've added/removed yellow from the titles over the last couple of years.

Even just colourising one of the News at Ten stings in a lighter blue would have been a start - they don't even need to use a full clockface with the right time.

This re-colouring is done by Red Bee as opposed to graphics teams at ITN though.

Slightly GMTV. I think that the openings have to be changed - the clock face opening went well with the old studio, but today they just do not go together.

Plus in a few weeks when the clocks go back, would you be happy seeing the lighter background on the evening news?

And do you think they should have kept the music from the middle part of the titles?

There are four versions of the London skyline - Lunchtime News, Evening News light and dark and News at Ten. So, the Lunchtime News background won't be used on EN during the summer months.

And yes, I do think they should have kept the mid titles animation.

P.S. The clocks go forward in Spring.

If anything I think I'd begin the bulletin with the main part of the titles and ditch the opening headline - so it's the 10-15 sec title sequence into the studio, then the headlines, then a pan of the studio at the end.

I also think rather than having the glass from above they should have the ITV News logo on one of the larger glass screens as we saw behind Katie/Alistair in the individual shots.


I wonder if they'll be any changes to News at Ten who AFAIK used much smaller "screens" for live links and any reports.

I timed the DVD recorder for the Lunchtime News but (for whatever reason) it failed. So I'm just basing my opinion on caps posted here and everyone's descriptions.

I'm glad the other bulletins have been given this much needed refresh, but I'm not happy with the same music being kept even though I knew it would be (it's gradually starting to date IMO - a fresher remix of the mid-1990s package would have been welcome). Seems rather odd that they dropped the main portion of the title sequence but I'll reserve judgement on that until I see tonight's Evening News. The backdrop looks fairly alright but I'm not sure of the actual skyline itself; colours are just about acceptable, and as Robert said, reflects back to how the Lunchtime News studio used to look, pre-1995.

I presume they're still using the same astons, live dog, etc? Makes no sense when you consider that they gone to this extent at "replicating" News at Ten they've kept the (poor) ITV News astons. Could they not adapt the namestraps used for NaT?

Here it is, seeing as you missed it, BBCNicky...

http://vid273.photobucket.com/albums/jj219/StuartPlymouth/ITVLunchtimeNews-090209.flv