ITV News

It's not died at all! The very worst is yet to come.

ITN (200 Gray's Inn Road) has been evacuated after suspect package found. Grays Inn Road has been closed by the police.

I guess a good job then they're not offering rolling news on the Earthquake - indeed since the News Channel was axed has the rolling news plans announced ever actually materialised.

Very fast, pacey and engaging coverage of the Japan earthquake on the News at 1:30 - impressive. Was Alastair drafted in at the last minute to present today, as his name didn't appear in the listing.

Really clunky and ugly graphics though when they put the ticker up, with everything stacked on top of each other. (Was going to get a capture from the ITV Player but the bulletin appears to have been uploaded without any on-screen graphics, very odd.)

That ITV-mulling-ITN-takeover story has been doing the rounds for years, since before the close of the News Channel, but I wouldn't be surprised if ITV was taking a greater interest at the current moment, with the news review apparently still underway. But what would happen if they did incorporate ITN into ITV - what would be the branding of ITV bulletins? Would they reinstate ITN as the name for news programmes on ITV, or would they risk renaming the organisation "ITV News" - i.e., "An ITV News Production for Channel 4"...?

ITV News is most likely, considering that's what ITN actually stands for anyway.

Sorry for sounding stupid, but why could ITV not own ITN and keep thee two separate brands?!

The majority of ITV's assets are ITV branded, having been branded differently in the past. ITN is a massive news organisation so it will almost certainly become ITV branded if owned by ITV. GMTV was a much smaller organisation yet they've even rebranded that!

While that's true, ITV's assets like GMTV don't produce key programming for rivals. I'd also go as far to say Channel 4 might not want the Channel 4 News brand potentially tarnished by slapping a 'produced by ITV News' sticker on the end.

I doubt an endcap will tarnish Channel 4 News' reputation, although in such a situation the ITN could remain for other channels similar to how ITV kept 'Granada Productions'. Channel 5 apparently want to terminate the Sky contract, so they may well end up back with ITN again.

I imagine the youtube channel and any other outlets will be rebranded as ITV; if at the very least to boost the ITV News brand. But it's only rumours that have been around for ages so it probably isn't even going to happen in the near future.

Oh God, I spoke too optimistically. They've rolled out every possible human interest technique they can think of for tonight's programme. The words, the camera panning and slow zooming (as if it's a flipping drama, or as if the viewers have ADHD and can't cope with a still shot for five seconds), the overtly sombre tone. How awful to think that the lunchtime news is more of a watch than News at Ten, when it was the other way round not so long ago!

I'm not saying they should read news copy and show no emotion - leave that to the BBC, that's never been ITN's/ITV's style - but they seem to go waaaay too far with stories like this all the time. Big, awful, emotive news story emanating from Japan which doesn't deserve to be tarted up with numerous mentions of the same phrases like "the human cost" (their favourite phrase it would seem), "taking everything in its path", "a whole community erased", etc. Graphics are bloody bad too.

Good extensive coverage on ITV News at Ten tonight, which has been extended to 10:45

I don't know, seemed too "for dummies" to me. The right amount of time devoted to the story, yes, but not covered in a strong enough way. But I'm glad they made the decision to include the day's other (domestic) news.