The Newsroom

ITV News: Rotas & Presenters

(July 2010)

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CI
cityprod
itsrobert posted:
Well, aside from the breakfast programme, don't the US networks only have one newscast per day? I'm sure the last time I was in the States ABC, CBS and NBC had an evening newscast at 1830 and news at other times of the day was local.


Not strictly true. Both ABC and CBS have overnight news programmes starting at 2am. World News Now on ABC and Up To The Minute on CBS. The anchors for those programmes then anchor their networks morning news bulletins at 4am. America This Morning on ABC and CBS Morning News. NBC doesn't have an overnight news programme, but the anchor for their Early Today programme at 4am, then goes onto do First Look on MSNBC at 5am. Then the locals take over from 4.30am til 7am, and then the only news is the various Evening News programmes at 6.30pm. Only ABC has a late news programme, Nightline, at 11.35pm.

Quote:
Anyway, what's wrong with there being a variety of presenters? Everyone seems to criticise the BBC for over-using Tim Willcox, so surely some variety is better? And in any case, the BBC is a much worse offender for having too many newsreaders than ITV. The only main newscasters I can think of are Mark, Alastair, Mary and Julie - between them they pretty much cover most weekdays. You can't count the weekend bulletins and the Morning News because more often than not they're covered by freelancers, which is not unusual - even the BBC use odd faces at weekends..


Apples and Oranges. What happens on a news channel is one thing. But when you have a few daily bulletins on a general entertainment channel, and you are a commercial operation who'se sole raison d'etre is to make a profit, why are you using four anchors when one or two would do?

A news channel is a very different animal, and there you would need a number of different anchors including cover, so a totally different ball game.
JO
Jon
cityprod posted:

And what's that gotta do with efficient use of resources and making a profit? ITV always complain about News being a loss making exercise, it would be helpful if they didn't waste money on more big name anchors than is strictly necessary. I'm quite sure there's other things we can point to as being wasteful spending. People are always critical of the BBC 'spending wastefully', yet they refuse to criticise commercial companies for doing the same thing.

But a commercial company isn't spending public money, and as such it's the shareholders who they have to answer to.
MW
Mike W
cityprod posted:
itsrobert posted:
Well, aside from the breakfast programme, don't the US networks only have one newscast per day? I'm sure the last time I was in the States ABC, CBS and NBC had an evening newscast at 1830 and news at other times of the day was local.


Not strictly true. Both ABC and CBS have overnight news programmes starting at 2am. World News Now on ABC and Up To The Minute on CBS. The anchors for those programmes then anchor their networks morning news bulletins at 4am. America This Morning on ABC and CBS Morning News. NBC doesn't have an overnight news programme, but the anchor for their Early Today programme at 4am, then goes onto do First Look on MSNBC at 5am. Then the locals take over from 4.30am til 7am, and then the only news is the various Evening News programmes at 6.30pm. Only ABC has a late news programme, Nightline, at 11.35pm.


CBS also ran a server based, tape delay programme called 'CBS Newsbreak' - ran in commercial segments and was piped to local affiliates, recorded at 10am ish every morning by Network.
CI
cityprod
Jon Wells posted:
cityprod posted:

And what's that gotta do with efficient use of resources and making a profit? ITV always complain about News being a loss making exercise, it would be helpful if they didn't waste money on more big name anchors than is strictly necessary. I'm quite sure there's other things we can point to as being wasteful spending. People are always critical of the BBC 'spending wastefully', yet they refuse to criticise commercial companies for doing the same thing.

But a commercial company isn't spending public money, and as such it's the shareholders who they have to answer to.


Still doesn't explain why they spend wastefully. If they want to make a profit on news, they should be more efficient with their spending. And I don't care that it's not public money. It's still money, that they are spending unnecessarily, under the guise of trying to make a profit??? Gotta do better than that.
SW
SWatson7
In theory; bigger name = more viewers = more revenue.

I'm not sure if Natasha has had an effect on ITV's ratings or not, but when she moved from the BBC to Channel 5, the ratings doubled overnight. ITV rarely do big or high profile signings anyway, they prefer to grow their own so I'm not really sure what you're getting at.
BR
Brekkie
It's also about offering something different to the competition - and double header bulletins does that for ITV and gives them greater flexibility in terms of sending one anchor out on locations etc. I suspect if you look at the head count for an ITV News bulletin and compare it to a BBC bulletin even just considering the on-screen talent ITV are probably fewer in numbers. The BBC may be single headed but they often have reporters in the studio doing reports in front of the barcos which arguably the main presenter (or a second presenter) could do, so it's swings and roundabouts.

9 days later

MA
Macalolo
With Nina returning for the Queens Jubilee coverage I wonder what we can expect of her return and how that will affect Natasha? Is there room for both at ITN towers? Surely not.
GM
GMc
Macalolo posted:
With Nina returning for the Queens Jubilee coverage I wonder what we can expect of her return and how that will affect Natasha? Is there room for both at ITN towers? Surely not.


I know it would never happen, but I would like Nina as the main Lunchtime News presenter, with Natasha staying on London Tonight.
Nina is long overdue a promotion, IMO.
CF
CatsFast101
FOA: ANYONE WHO'S INTRESTED (if not don't make comment, okay?)

Charlene White making a rare Saturday appearance on the 5:30 news this morning. Faye Barker should be on at 9:25 and Lunchtime!
GH
George Hill
Macalolo posted:
With Nina returning for the Queens Jubilee coverage I wonder what we can expect of her return and how that will affect Natasha? Is there room for both at ITN towers? Surely not.


I suspect they will keep them both. Probably with Nina doing less national bulletins and Natasha doing them instead.
CF
CatsFast101
George Hill posted:
Macalolo posted:
With Nina returning for the Queens Jubilee coverage I wonder what we can expect of her return and how that will affect Natasha? Is there room for both at ITN towers? Surely not.


I suspect they will keep them both. Probably with Nina doing less national bulletins and Natasha doing them instead.


I would like to see them share duties of London and National, for instance; Juies off and Mary is Get Nina to do national and Tasha to do London.
GH
George Hill
ELM 2011 posted:
George Hill posted:
Macalolo posted:
With Nina returning for the Queens Jubilee coverage I wonder what we can expect of her return and how that will affect Natasha? Is there room for both at ITN towers? Surely not.


I suspect they will keep them both. Probably with Nina doing less national bulletins and Natasha doing them instead.


I would like to see them share duties of London and National, for instance; Juies off and Mary is Get Nina to do national and Tasha to do London.


My guess is it would be the other way round - but yes, I think that is what they will do. There is plenty of nights to cover for a second main presenter on London Tonight anyway.

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