The Newsroom

The ITV News Channel is no longer broadcasting

(October 2005)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
LO
LONDON
Could we see Lucy make a return to London Tonight?

I reckon some presenters will be lost because ITV 1 will soon have too many presenters with both Katy and Andrea returning to the Newsroom. With Andrea returning, surely there will now be no need for different weekend anchors. One possible route for Steve Scott could be presenting the Evening News, i doubt it will last long with Mark doing the Evening and Nightly News 5 days a week. Leyla i suppose could be used on the lunchtime news to understudy Katy with Nina moving to just understudying Mary.

Retaining these presenters will be costly but would mean that some of the best talent is retained. Alistair could also be used as Nick's understudy as well as continueing with London Tonight.

ITV 3 could develop a breakfast show with Scott Chisolm Monday to Thursday and Andrew Harvey Friday to Sunday. This would be a logical move for ITV 3 which currently just screens normal programming. Also i expect GMTV 2's breakfast time offerings changed in the new year as kids programmes would be on CITV channel, so could some sort of new show go there?
LO
Londoner
Some bits from Sky News and PA:
Sky News posted:
Head of Sky News Nick Pollard said: "It's a sad day for British journalism.

"The ITV news channel was third in the market, but a very lively product. It is always sad to see any journalistic outlet close down."


PA posted:
NUJ national broadcasting organiser Paul McLaughlin said: "This is an absolute outrage because in making this decision, ITV are basically signalling their intention to remove themselves as serious players in news coverage.

"It is a devastating blow for ITN staff in the run-up to Christmas, a real disaster.

"It just shows ITV are abandoning their commitment to news. They had consistently said they care about it but their actions speak far louder than words."

The NUJ would be holding an emergency meeting, Mr McLaughlin said.

"We are certainly not going to take this lying down," he added.
AN
Andrew Founding member
nationwide posted:
The only 'main' presenters this will affect will be...
Leyla Deybelge
Andrew Harvey
Lucy Alexander
Joyce Ohajh
Steve Scott

Although Lucy and Joyce are involved in the London News- however I can't see them coming in to do a 10 minute bulletin.

Steve and Leyla sometimes do the weekend news and other bulletins - but again not enough to do full time presenting.

And poor Andrew is only on the news channel - I think all the rest are freelance presenters

Although no doubt freelance there's also the likes of Sasha Herriman, Owen Thomas, Chris Rogers etc who do most of their work at ITV and are unlikely to get a job on ITV1
CM
Col Mustard
I think this is a disaster and for all their supposed justification, shows the real short sighted nature of the powers at ITV. How much respect will be lost because of this.

Also, I see no sense in the timing. With a re-launch of the whole network in January, hopefully bringing new viewers to all its output, you would have thought the'd at least have given it until the launch of kids.

But now I see the justification: The redesign brings in new viewers to the National News and the powers say "...see! without a News Channel, we get more viewers for our mainsteam news! Job done"
Pathetic! Evil or Very Mad
LO
Londoner
I wonder how long the channel will stagger on for? Surely they will close it as soon as they can, rather than prolong the agony for all concerned?
NA
nationwide
Did it come up as breaking news on the itv news channel?

I think next Friday will be the last day of proper news channel service, from that point on it would have been a limited service anyway - surely no point in picking up momentum again in january...?
LO
Londoner
Just been covered on the Lunchtime News
http://www.rp-networkservices.com/tvforum/uploads/ncclosure.jpg
CA
cat
Will be interesting to see exactly where the viewers go.

In terms of demographics, they would logically migrate to Sky - similar sort of news agenda, commercial channel, etc.

That said, you could argue that ITV is more of an established news provider than Sky with the public and viewers choose it because they are familiar with the brand, and as such viewers will migrate to the next service from a 'normal' broadcaster, which is obviously News 24.
JO
Jonathan
Yeh, just seen it on the LN. Seems weird, ITV News making their own news. Will they be announcing this on the News Channel do you reckon?
NA
nationwide
It will be interesting to see how they word it on the news channel itself. I wonder if anyone will be missing this afternoon...?
CM
Col Mustard
cat posted:
Will be interesting to see exactly where the viewers go.

In terms of demographics, they would logically migrate to Sky - similar sort of news agenda, commercial channel, etc.

That said, you could argue that ITV is more of an established news provider than Sky with the public and viewers choose it because they are familiar with the brand, and as such viewers will migrate to the next service from a 'normal' broadcaster, which is obviously News 24.


Always interesting to see how quickly the vultures swoop in to pick at the bones... Wink
ST
Stuart
I can see them cutting the hours on DSat & DCab from next week to allow them to run down the service slowly before the end of January.

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