ITV News

Agree with the general sentiment, but it is brought crashing down by the apparently approved 'editorialising' of it's lead presenter rather than the programme being presented defacto.

Editorialising isn’t the same as being downmarket. Do you think The Telegraph or the New Statesman are downmarket?

Under the Barclay Brothers ownership, the Telegraph has dumbed down and shoehorned paid inserts into the paper in an attempt to shake off it's 'old colonel' readership that haven't died yet.

I think you’re missing the point

That would be good - and it's certainly true to say that ITN were considered way ahead of the Beeb for many years, ITV's news always seemed more interesting and more incisive, and they were much better at royal stories and could do amusing things like the And Finally without it seeming forced. Whereas there were endless revamps on the Beeb, the flying fish fingers era of the Nine was just the most blatant attempt to ape News at Ten, and when they tried to do more populist stuff it often felt a bit tacky.

And of course this was despite ITN having a much lower budget, but they used that to their advantage because they cultivated a family of popular and authoritative reporters who viewers got to know and trust. That's why I never think much of people saying ITV can never beat the Beeb because the Beeb are swimming in cash and ITV can never hope to compete. They managed to beat them for years. I think one of the main problems for ITV News now is that the Beeb has taken on all that was good about ITN for a long time without sacrificing any of its authority.

1999 was the death of ITN News, when they moved News at Ten. A decision the ITV bosses have lived to regret ever since. Once they lost that time slot, even when they brought it back, they had lost a brand which was trusted by the public.

In January 2001, the botched return of the ITV News at Ten was also major damage to ITV. They tried to sell it as the return of News at Ten, it wasn't. It was simply the moving of their 20 minute Nightly News from 11.00pm to 10.00pm. Then deciding to only air it three nights a week, with one night being able to bounce it where they like and Fridays having it at 11.00pm, ruined any trust or authority. No wonder the BBC gained more viewers, stability was what they offered.

In my opinion, the 2008 relaunch was totally dismantled in November 2009, when after only 22 months on the air, they took the wonderful night time skyline view of London, the famous opening titles and music, and dumped it for the bland, trying to get out of an underground car park, generic opening title sequence of their national news. What the hell where they thinking?

ITV News has let the viewers down a lot, by their mismanagement of their news schedules and direction of their news content. The rot started in March 1999, and sadly now in August 2018 the rot has not been eradicated.

Yes I would agree that the two biggest failures were in 1999 and again in 2009. We all know the impact of the original decision to drop News at Ten - but I feel that they had finally gone some way to turning things around again in 2008. That relaunch of NAT was superb - it really oozed quality and authority. It had the familiarity of Trevor, the titles, the music, the bongs - but also had a fresh face in Julie who is an excellent newscaster. Once Trevor left, Mark took over and that pairing was working very well - the big mistake they made was that they replaced the branding so quickly with the absolutely dire generic yellow and black colour scheme. They really should have kept NAT distinctive - what a mistake that was. And replacing Mark with Tom was another error of judgement in my opinion. Mark was a well-respected and safe pair of hands who had lots of experience of reporting and presenting from the field. They took a huge gamble with Tom Bradby which I, personally, think has failed. He's not a natural newscaster whatsoever and makes headlines himself for all the wrong reasons. I've always been a believer that the newscaster shouldn't overshadow the news.

If you're talking about his recent health problems, that's hardly his fault.

ITV just don't seem to stick with anything long enough and if they do they constantly fiddle with things which doesn't help.

There was a wonderful sketch on Dead Ringers re, ITV News and the teal era. Presenters shuffling about as they were reading the headlines.

Totally agree about the 2008 NAT relaunch, they should have stuck with the titles and theme. NAT was all about Tower Clock face, Big Ben and the bongs, there was nothing wrong about it being "London centric". I'd even take the 1995 ITN titles and music over the present output!

No, I was talking about the scripting of the Genoa bridge collapse story.

Was tonights Lenny Henry Show the first thing Trevor McDonald has hosted for the BBC since retiring, other than perhaps an episode or two of Have I Got News for You?