EX
No, Dermot was on standby then. He interrupted the late night music video slot by saying that 'Princess Diana is gravely ill'. I'm sure there's a clip somewhere.
Would he have been the duty overnight presenter, or very quickly called into work?
Do they have somebody "on standby" though? When Diana died, was it not broken by Nicholas Owen? I doubt he'd have been in the building waiting.
No, Dermot was on standby then. He interrupted the late night music video slot by saying that 'Princess Diana is gravely ill'. I'm sure there's a clip somewhere.
Would he have been the duty overnight presenter, or very quickly called into work?
RO
No, Dermot was on standby then. He interrupted the late night music video slot by saying that 'Princess Diana is gravely ill'. I'm sure there's a clip somewhere.
Would he have been the duty overnight presenter, or very quickly called into work?
I would think it would have been someone like Tim Wilcox or Dennis Tuohy, as they would have presented the Morning News if it had gone to air that day.
rob
Founding member
Do they have somebody "on standby" though? When Diana died, was it not broken by Nicholas Owen? I doubt he'd have been in the building waiting.
No, Dermot was on standby then. He interrupted the late night music video slot by saying that 'Princess Diana is gravely ill'. I'm sure there's a clip somewhere.
Would he have been the duty overnight presenter, or very quickly called into work?
I would think it would have been someone like Tim Wilcox or Dennis Tuohy, as they would have presented the Morning News if it had gone to air that day.
BR
Though nowadays isn't Tim Wilcox on duty 24/7 just in case.
Is overnight continuity on ITV still live - with teleshopping and nightscreen forming most of it there is little reason for it to be, but obviously a CA can be a stop gap to do some sort of out of vision news report if something major breaks and they need to stall before a newsreader is available. I can't see any channel really paying someone to be their overnight 365 days a year just on the off chance a story would break - it's makes little financial sense and has there really been such a breaking story overnight since the death of Diana. I doubt C4 and C5 have anyone on duty, so don't see why ITV would either - though of course if itv.com/news is manned 24/7 they may be called into action overnight should something worth breaking into nightscreen happen. They could also use someone from the Daybreak team too.
Is overnight continuity on ITV still live - with teleshopping and nightscreen forming most of it there is little reason for it to be, but obviously a CA can be a stop gap to do some sort of out of vision news report if something major breaks and they need to stall before a newsreader is available. I can't see any channel really paying someone to be their overnight 365 days a year just on the off chance a story would break - it's makes little financial sense and has there really been such a breaking story overnight since the death of Diana. I doubt C4 and C5 have anyone on duty, so don't see why ITV would either - though of course if itv.com/news is manned 24/7 they may be called into action overnight should something worth breaking into nightscreen happen. They could also use someone from the Daybreak team too.
IT
The last time something major happened overnight that I can remember is the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. I certainly remember Alastair Yates being on duty on BBC News 24 - but I have no idea what ITN did on that occasion. As I recall, the ITV News Channel was going at that point, but it was usually recorded at night.
I can't see ITN being manned by many people at night either. At the moment there's obviously the Morning News production team, but once this is axed it would not be cost effective like you say. I don't know whether there's some sort of online duty team or whether MCR is staffed overnight - but if they are then there's somebody there monitoring things. All it would take would be a few phone calls and I'm sure they could assemble a production team fairly quickly. That must be what happened in 1997 as I bet Dermot Murnaghan was meant to be that day's newscaster and he was just brought in much earlier than usual. In those days it mattered much more as there was only Sky News (not widely available) and the BBC, which joined BBC World in the days before News 24. It would be fascinating to see what ITN would do in the event of something unexpected happening overnight - it wouldn't surprise me if nothing much happened until the start of the television day at breakfast.
itsrobert
Founding member
Though nowadays isn't Tim Wilcox on duty 24/7 just in case.
Is overnight continuity on ITV still live - with teleshopping and nightscreen forming most of it there is little reason for it to be, but obviously a CA can be a stop gap to do some sort of out of vision news report if something major breaks and they need to stall before a newsreader is available. I can't see any channel really paying someone to be their overnight 365 days a year just on the off chance a story would break - it's makes little financial sense and has there really been such a breaking story overnight since the death of Diana. I doubt C4 and C5 have anyone on duty, so don't see why ITV would either - though of course if itv.com/news is manned 24/7 they may be called into action overnight should something worth breaking into nightscreen happen. They could also use someone from the Daybreak team too.
Is overnight continuity on ITV still live - with teleshopping and nightscreen forming most of it there is little reason for it to be, but obviously a CA can be a stop gap to do some sort of out of vision news report if something major breaks and they need to stall before a newsreader is available. I can't see any channel really paying someone to be their overnight 365 days a year just on the off chance a story would break - it's makes little financial sense and has there really been such a breaking story overnight since the death of Diana. I doubt C4 and C5 have anyone on duty, so don't see why ITV would either - though of course if itv.com/news is manned 24/7 they may be called into action overnight should something worth breaking into nightscreen happen. They could also use someone from the Daybreak team too.
The last time something major happened overnight that I can remember is the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. I certainly remember Alastair Yates being on duty on BBC News 24 - but I have no idea what ITN did on that occasion. As I recall, the ITV News Channel was going at that point, but it was usually recorded at night.
I can't see ITN being manned by many people at night either. At the moment there's obviously the Morning News production team, but once this is axed it would not be cost effective like you say. I don't know whether there's some sort of online duty team or whether MCR is staffed overnight - but if they are then there's somebody there monitoring things. All it would take would be a few phone calls and I'm sure they could assemble a production team fairly quickly. That must be what happened in 1997 as I bet Dermot Murnaghan was meant to be that day's newscaster and he was just brought in much earlier than usual. In those days it mattered much more as there was only Sky News (not widely available) and the BBC, which joined BBC World in the days before News 24. It would be fascinating to see what ITN would do in the event of something unexpected happening overnight - it wouldn't surprise me if nothing much happened until the start of the television day at breakfast.
GM
The only big(ish) stories to happen, or escalate overnight in the past few years as I remember are the Raoul Moat manhunt, the Chilean miners rescue and the 2011 England riots. There were no "Breaking News Reports" for any of these stories, just the usual 90 second update at around 3am(ish) and the Morning News.
NI
It was hardly overnight though, IIRC it broke about 11pm-ish. I remember reading that Alastair had already left the building after doing News at Ten that night but came straight back for the news reports.
If something quite major or serious to UK audiences broke about 2/3am, would they draft in someone like Alastair or Mark to read it? The Diana newsflashes on ITV weren't as early in the morning as that.
Michael Jacksons death prompted several news updates.
It was hardly overnight though, IIRC it broke about 11pm-ish. I remember reading that Alastair had already left the building after doing News at Ten that night but came straight back for the news reports.
If something quite major or serious to UK audiences broke about 2/3am, would they draft in someone like Alastair or Mark to read it? The Diana newsflashes on ITV weren't as early in the morning as that.
WA
What time did Obama announce Bin Laden had been killed? Daybreak opened the programme with the story at 6am.
SW
I don't think it did beat the BBC when they were both on at one o'clock because in One Day In The Life Of Television, the editor of the One O'Clock News says they're beating ITV by two to one. Of course before the One O'Clock News, News After Noon would be at 12.30 during the winter, when Pebble Mill was on, and one o'clock in the summer. I've said this before but the main problem with having the news at 1.30 is that it feels out of date after the BBC news. And it would surely make more sense to put it at 12.30 because it means they can attract people at one who don't want to watch the news, and will also stop This Morning and Loose Women being next to each other as they often seem to be doing the same kind of thing.
Pretty sure overnight continuity on ITV hasn't been live for about two decades - certainly when I used to record Funny Business, the old comedy review show, off overnight ITV in 1996, they used the same continuity announcement into it every week for about six months, And I'm pretty sure they would never get a continuity announcer to read breaking news, if it was important enough to interrupt the schedule they'd get a newsreader in there.
I'm pretty sure Murnaghan was on standby that weekend in case of breaking news - given in those days the first news on a Sunday was at 1pm, I'm pretty sure the Sunday newsreader would not consider 4am as an appropriate time to be on their toes just in case - because of course the newsflashes on BBC1 were read by Martyn Lewis who certainly wasn't reading the news at the weekends in those days, he was brought in as a senior newsreader. And I'm sure both the Beeb and ITN still have a rota of senior presenters on call to come in at short notice. In the eighties it was often Nicholas Witchell because he lived locally and didn't have a family.
I'm sure that when ITV had News at One during the time it was head to head with One O'clock News, they used to regularly topple the BBC. It wouldn't happen now, so the best thing would be to move it back to the familiar 12:30 time. I'm sure it did better at that time than it does at 1:30.
I don't think it did beat the BBC when they were both on at one o'clock because in One Day In The Life Of Television, the editor of the One O'Clock News says they're beating ITV by two to one. Of course before the One O'Clock News, News After Noon would be at 12.30 during the winter, when Pebble Mill was on, and one o'clock in the summer. I've said this before but the main problem with having the news at 1.30 is that it feels out of date after the BBC news. And it would surely make more sense to put it at 12.30 because it means they can attract people at one who don't want to watch the news, and will also stop This Morning and Loose Women being next to each other as they often seem to be doing the same kind of thing.
Is overnight continuity on ITV still live - with teleshopping and nightscreen forming most of it there is little reason for it to be, but obviously a CA can be a stop gap to do some sort of out of vision news report if something major breaks and they need to stall before a newsreader is available.
Pretty sure overnight continuity on ITV hasn't been live for about two decades - certainly when I used to record Funny Business, the old comedy review show, off overnight ITV in 1996, they used the same continuity announcement into it every week for about six months, And I'm pretty sure they would never get a continuity announcer to read breaking news, if it was important enough to interrupt the schedule they'd get a newsreader in there.
All it would take would be a few phone calls and I'm sure they could assemble a production team fairly quickly. That must be what happened in 1997 as I bet Dermot Murnaghan was meant to be that day's newscaster and he was just brought in much earlier than usual.
I'm pretty sure Murnaghan was on standby that weekend in case of breaking news - given in those days the first news on a Sunday was at 1pm, I'm pretty sure the Sunday newsreader would not consider 4am as an appropriate time to be on their toes just in case - because of course the newsflashes on BBC1 were read by Martyn Lewis who certainly wasn't reading the news at the weekends in those days, he was brought in as a senior newsreader. And I'm sure both the Beeb and ITN still have a rota of senior presenters on call to come in at short notice. In the eighties it was often Nicholas Witchell because he lived locally and didn't have a family.
NW
Depending what Night Time service you got, but the LNN/Dancers Night Time service had live announcements on weekdays, ie when Carlton was on air, but on the LWT side of things they didnt like paying announcers to stay overnight, so for them all night time announcements were pre-recorded or just didn't exist. I'm sure it stayed this way until National continuity appeared in October 2002.
Pretty sure overnight continuity on ITV hasn't been live for about two decades - certainly when I used to record Funny Business, the old comedy review show, off overnight ITV in 1996, they used the same continuity announcement into it every week for about six months, And I'm pretty sure they would never get a continuity announcer to read breaking news, if it was important enough to interrupt the schedule they'd get a newsreader in there.
Depending what Night Time service you got, but the LNN/Dancers Night Time service had live announcements on weekdays, ie when Carlton was on air, but on the LWT side of things they didnt like paying announcers to stay overnight, so for them all night time announcements were pre-recorded or just didn't exist. I'm sure it stayed this way until National continuity appeared in October 2002.