ITV News

You're misunderstanding me. I didn't say last night's NAT was poor editorially. I just thought some of the graphics used over the last few days (including last night) were pretty poor, that is all. As we have seen, that team is capable of brilliant designs so I was a bit irked to see some rather tacky ones. If I had the bulletins recorded then I'd capture them and post them here.

For the record, I actually didn't have a problem with the news content on NAT last night.

By the way, 'new low' referred to that Dad's Army-style graphic on Wednesday's NAT, not the content of the bulletin...!

The death of a young police officer in Omagh leads this evening's bulletin as a breaking story.

Sally Biddulph spoke from the newsroom with the emerging details and an eyewitness account. A shame they didn't link with UTV, but well organised in the circumstances.

I think graphics and all hit an all-time low when we got the 'Not Guitar but Quatar' graphics and report.

Not sure that this survey has been seen by ITN but a young interview has asked different people what they think about ITV News.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yFdmX-lHMk

I'm sure ITV will love all the references to GMTV there

Amazing report from John Irvine opening the News at Ten, don't you think? Long but worth it, and everything a good international report should be.

Also is it just me or does Chris Choi have a strange liking for using weird effects in his reports? The camera shots in the opening to his report looked like somebody trying to go shopping after having undergone laser eye surgery or something.

I think this might be the same report C4N ran earlier in the eveing (the attacks on children in Libya). They credited ITV News at the end before cutting to a live with their own correspondent out there. Still quite unusual to see, but you're right, I thought the Irvine report was excellent too.

Intresting last report on tonights News at Ten, reporting on the death of the autocue's co-inventor Hubert Schlafly, showed live look at Mark and Nina's autocue and whilst showing the autocue ended, along the lines of " as you can see there thats Tonights ITV News At Ten"

Yes, a nice touch - if a little rushed! Mark's mock-US accent when he said "Connecticut" was bloody awful though.

Looking forward to the coverage of the Royal Wedding - specifically the presentation. Apart from the same trail they've been putting at the end of the news programmes, there's not much hint as to what the graphics will look like.

And as far as covering the event, I'm sure ITN/ITV will do a good job. They always tend to excel themselves, in contrast to the BBC who I find rather staid and dull when covering big occasions like this; ITV tend to get the balance almost perfect. Shame they can't bring their bog-standard news bulletins to a decent quality (!)

Strangely I'm warming to the idea of Philip Schofield presenting alongside Julie Etchingham. Do you think I'm coming down with something...?

When you look at the line ups for the BBC and Sky, its clear that only Sky are taking a solid news approach as the BBC have various Radio 1 and sports presenters reporting. Even E! isn't staying true to its demographic and are skewing in the opposite direction with Angela Rippon as one of their correspondents .

Phil & Julie does seem like a good combination, I too was a little sceptical at first, but I do wonder if Holly Willoughby hadn't been on maternity leave, would she have been first choice? Phil is a big personality, I'm not sure Julie will be able to match up to him and she might fade into the background a little bit.

Not sure I agree - for all we know, Phil could bring out a more relaxed presenting style from Julie...

Placing Phil and Holly as presenters for what might be termed a prestigious national event would be taking the p1ss somewhat...! Not that they're not a professional presenting team, but it would perhaps add too much of a light atmosphere even by ITV standards. As it is, I'm fine with Philip alongside Julie - it mixes both the seriousness and light-heartedness of the event.

Good News at Ten tonight. But not sure how I feel about the other stories of the day - namely the events in Tuscaloosa - being presented by Mark and Julie in front of the Palace. Both happy and excited about the wedding one minute, then sombre and serious reading out serious world news the next...

I completely agree, BBCNicky. There was absolutely no need for both Alastair and Mary and Mark and Julie to be outside Buckingham Palace for the Evening News and News at Ten. It would have been much more appropriate for one of them to have been in the studio at ITN to cover the rest of the day's news. Being on location and reading unrelated news doesn't work at all. They should have taken a leaf out of the BBC's book - they've had a presenter on location as well as one in the studio for today's bulletins. Really, I'd argue that presenting on location is almost always unnecessary. I can just about accept that the Royal Wedding is a circumstance in which on location presenting is useful, especially given the huge crowds; it does add to the sense of atmosphere. But, I think it should be the exception rather than the rule. They've presented on location so many times in recent years that it's beginning to lose its effectiveness. In decades gone by, they'd only go out on location very sparingly and it worked well then. They really need to think long and hard before sending a presenter out on location: what will be gained by doing this? For the most part it's just an unnecessary gimmick these days.