What should the ITV News Channel do to improve?

Much as I personally like the ITV NC, it will take some CONSIDERABLE investment if they have any intentions of catching up with Sky and News 24.

Also, one of their supposed selling points is that the presenters are well known and trusted - however, you rarely get the ITV1 presenters on the channel these days. What I think would be a good idea is to give some of the NC presenters some exposure by giving them a few shifts on ITV1. The likes of Owen Thomas and Lucy Alexander are excellent presenters, but people don't really know who they are - give them both a few goes on the Evening News and raise their profile, they are certainly more than capable of it.

A few *well made* adverts on ITV1 wouldn't go amiss either.

Liking your ideas Brekkie Boy.

Personally I don't understand why they haven't done up a newsroom to act as a Studio.

Working within the newsroom rather than infront of it, with it around you or no where at all.

Even if they just put a desk in, and maybe a bank of monitors, like the old Sky News studio.

And then they could do the old sky news thing of sitting at the desks, and walking around the newsroom, etc. Or just sit at the desk. The only problem is that it could be noisy.

Alternatively with a bit of investment, they could try and convince ITN of using the atrium, as they do for Elections as their news centre. With desks and podiums planted around, and a big screen at the back. Though it would ruin the view from Channel 4's window.

And of course on the cheap, they could
Get rid of the blue floating squares
Maybe get rid of the grey borders on the newswall for metal ones (though not needed)
Add a few plasmas at the end of the wall (ala Sky News, so that they could stand there)
Maybe add a couple of seats up the corner
Or a little stage/podium at one end looking round at the newswall
Perhaps use the desk more, sit on it instead of just behind it, and increase the amount of angles used.

The only problem would be that when they have to switch studios, the CSO would look bland!

As for the presenters, agreed about giving them more focus on ITV1.

I think that they need to build up a team of strong presenters in fixed slots, such as...
Keeping Andrew & Katie in Breakfast
Keep Alastair at 10, have him switching to the other studio (or maybe one day staying) rather than having another presenter.
Carry the Lunchtime presenters over until 1pm
Use Chris Rogers with Lucy Alexander 2-4pm
Keep Felicity with Steve 4-6 (with them anchoring a news network at 6, though they could only show reports, as the regions would be live at 6
Extend the evening news extra until 8pm
Use Owen Thomas & Leyla to anchor the evening 8-10:30
And then use Brekkie Boys idea for 'Nightline', to be repeated through the night until other problems have been sorted.

I also agree about showing the News Hour on the News Channel as the News Channel goes on air at 6am on freeview, and it shouldn't begin with the morning news, twice!

Re: studio - this is a very basic mock so you'll need your imagination.

Basically, take the curved screen as used in this year's Big Brother eviction shows (see here, though this is from the final - or look at the eviction galleries here!)

and the general ITV News desk - and you've got a NC studio. Basically, instead of the CSO background you have a smaller curved screen which on screen looks similar, but in fact is much smaller.

Excuse the mock - and ignore the colours, but this is basically what I mean (the dark blue is the screen):
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y163/brekkieboy2001/itvnews/allnewstudio.jpg


Of course in an ideal world there would be much bigger changes. I wouldn't expect a brand new studio yet, but I think the "theatre of news" could be changed so it offers a couple more presenting areas.

I'd also incorporate into this a small studio which overlooks the main studio, but is actually seperate, which would be used while preperations for the ITV1 bulletins takes place. This way it just looks like another presenting area, rather than that the news channel team have been kicked out for a couple of hours!

But what is the point of the News Channel having a seperate smaller cheaper studio when the whole point of the ITV News studio is so viewers are in familar surroundings from the minute they turn on?, and a studio that enables them to do those newswall presentations every so often.

I believe the current situation with the virtual studio looking identical to the real studio is the best situation they've had

Fair point.

As I've said earlier, the biggest problem with the CSO set up is the switching of presenters mid-hour before the ITV1 bulletins. If they began the CSO parts 30 minutes earlier (so 90 mins before the ITV1 bulletin) it wouldn't be so bad!

And your point about the studio is completly valid - I'd say it looks far better when in the CSO studio as opposed to when they are in the London Tonight studio.


P.S. Do people here really rate Owen Thomas? I'm no fan myself - he's one for regional news!

But they rarely use that London Tonight studio. To my knowledge it is only used Mon-Fri for ITV News Network at 20:30 and possibly once a month if something breaks down in one of the other two studios.

I think they should keep the current arrangement of the main theatre of news for ITV1 bulletins and the ITV News Channel throughout the rest of the day. Use the virtual studio for the ITV1 short updates and relocate the ITV News Channel to the virtual studio 30 minutes before an ITV1 bulletin.

Most days I do not even notice that they have changed studio. One casing point being on Wednesday when the David Blunket story was breaking and Alastair Stewart was on the ITVNC from 10:00 right upto 12:30. I did not see him change studio, they had no advert breaks in that two and half hours and there were no packages run giving him time to relocate to the other studio - how did he do it?

Lauren Taylor anchored from Downing Street for five or six minutes at 11.30, introduced a package and waffled for a while whilst they did the swap.

Before:
http://www.dolben.demon.co.uk/newschannel/blunkettstudioswap1.jpg
After:
http://www.dolben.demon.co.uk/newschannel/blunkettstudioswap2.jpg

I'd personally say that they should only use the London Tonight studio for the regional link ups.

Agreed that the full CSO looks a lot better than the CSO screen aswell. Though most of the time, they have the old Central News setup of two cameras, one for the straight ahead shot and the other for reporters.

They never use it like they used it whilst Election rehersals were going ahead. If they did, most viewers wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

I'd still like to see their own studio, even if it is in a newsroom. Though of course for cost reasons at the moment it's impossible, unless ITV pull out their finger.

I can't believe that the channel runs on £3.5 million a year, that's incredibly low. Surely they could at least afford to double it. Though I suppose they look at it as spending as little as possible.

But then again, surely the smaller the amount that they spend, the smaller the amount that they'll get back!

Though you can actually see how little they have when on Thursday the top of the 4pm hour consisted of Steve and Lucy, Lucy with the PC clip board thing, and Steve with his pile of papers. Of course it could have been his choice, but then again!

As mentioned above, in normal circumstances it's only used for the News Network programme.

What is the situation between 9pm and 10.30pm then? I just assumed as they were in it at 9.30pm they stayed until 10.30pm.

Normally:
2100 - studio 2 (main theatre of news)
2130 - ITV News Network - studio 4 (London Tonight)
2200 - studio 1 (virtual studio)
2230 - News at 10.30 - studio 2

In the event that the same presenter is doing ITV News Network, the 10pm bulletin and the late London bulletin, then they stay in studio 4 throughout

I suppose Lauren did talk quite a bit there and 'question' Tony Blair - I wasn't expecting the switch so early but was looking out for it but didnt even notice that it had happened and that they were in the virtual studio!!! Goes to show that it can even fool me (someone interested in it all) and I was actually looking out for it aswell!

Therefore the non-anorak viewing public would NOT have noticed!