There still had to be advertisements afterwards. ITV is a solely commercial broadcaster, you know. To be honest, at weekends, people are more likely to get news of single- or double-fatality crimes and accidents and developments in devolved politics (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) from the BBC, the Internet (e.g. the ITV website) or Sky News. If news in one of the regions has very serious ramifications it'll probably also be covered on the ITV national bulletins.
In which case, why bother scheduling it?
They didn't foresee the delay of the start of the race. They probably think that most of those who are interested in regional news but not interested in rolling coverage of sporting events in the afternoon don't bother to watch ITV on that afternoon at all.
They didn't foresee the delay of the start of the race.
I'm sure they must have, because the Grand National never starts on time, this all seemed pretty standard to me. No longer a delay than a few minutes injury time in a football match in any case. But do keep the excuses coming.
Steve you've been on Digital Spy too long. Nobody is 'making an excuse', but rather trying to understand why things may have happened in certain ways that is the done thing here, not just a dismissive "Its because ITV are crap lol" like you get over there.
Steve you've been on Digital Spy too long. Nobody is 'making an excuse', but rather trying to understand why things may have happened in certain ways that is the done thing here, not just a dismissive "Its because ITV are crap lol" like you get over there.
I'm not especially bothered about the regional news, but it tickles me that people are bending over backwards to try and explain it away. The fact is, they absolutely could have done it and any reason they didn't is incredibly unconvincing. The race didn't last any longer than usual and there was time to get the scheduled regional news on if they wanted to. And they didn't.
If ITV want to get rid of the regional news on a Saturday full time, I wish they'd just go ahead and do it. Given they're using any excuse to drop it (the Grand National "overrunning", "drinks breaks" in the World Cup, build-up - build-up! - to England vs Lithuania), it's pretty obvious they're hardly committed to it. So don't bother. The scenario where it's scheduled and they drop it for the most pathetic reasons is no service for the viewer. It's the worst of both worlds.
It's nothing to do with DigitalSpy or anything. I know exactly why ITV are doing it. But we don't have to like it, do we?
There still had to be advertisements afterwards. ITV is a solely commercial broadcaster, you know. To be honest, at weekends, people are more likely to get news of single- or double-fatality crimes and accidents and developments in devolved politics (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) from the BBC, the Internet (e.g. the ITV website) or Sky News. If news in one of the regions has very serious ramifications it'll probably also be covered on the ITV national bulletins.
In which case, why bother scheduling it?
The big question, I guess, is did the regions have staff in to produce a bulletin or were they stood down in advance and nobody bothered to update the EPG?
ITV don't strike me as the kind of company to pay dozens of people to do nothing unless there is a very good reason.
Steve you've been on Digital Spy too long. Nobody is 'making an excuse', but rather trying to understand why things may have happened in certain ways that is the done thing here, not just a dismissive "Its because ITV are crap lol" like you get over there.
I'm not especially bothered about the regional news, but it tickles me that people are bending over backwards to try and explain it away. The fact is, they absolutely could have done it and any reason they didn't is incredibly unconvincing. The race didn't last any longer than usual and there was time to get the scheduled regional news on if they wanted to. And they didn't.
Agree - and no doubt about it had the Grand National led straight into Saturday Night Takeaway the racing would have had to make that handover time to the second.
The big question, I guess, is did the regions have staff in to produce a bulletin or were they stood down in advance and nobody bothered to update the EPG?
ITV don't strike me as the kind of company to pay dozens of people to do nothing unless there is a very good reason.
Calendar did an online bulletin, see 2 pages back, so staff must have been in, at least in one region
Also if ITV stood staff down in advance but said it was due to last minute overrunning racing, it sounds like the sort of thing that sooner or later would leak out and generate negative PR. Far better just not to schedule in the first place and attract less attention to the lack of a (tv) bulletin
Well the namechecked regional ident (6pm) is pre-fixed with the regional news titles, maybe the news gallery played out the wrong version instead of without the ident (i.e. the sting)? Or could be a Media Planning error.
Sounds like London weren't expecting an ident to precede the news for whatever reason. I know at weekends I've only ever seen an ident announcing 'the news where you aee', which suggests network play it, and then the regions opt, whilst at 6pm on weekdays the regions opt and play an ident out themselves which name checks the region and presenters (if it's the regular/common lineup). They've had the same VOs recorded by a range of continuity announcers, which is a nice touch as just before 6pm on weekdays the CA does a menu for ITV Daytime the next day, which sounds much nicer if the ident seconds later also features the same voice. Saying that, on occasions in my region I have heard two different voices.
I'm no au fait with the galleries of the regions, but perhaps they couldn't or didn't manage to take the ident out in time if they were playing it, once they realised network were doing one too? And because they have a range of voices in use, it just sounded like the same CA announced the news twice?