ITV News Strike

Of course at radio stations where we have our own sports audio from our own teams that's not a problem IRN did though used to have an agreement with SSN - it lapsed about a year ago iirc so it's only coming back, nothing groundbreaking.

But yes, prepare for I'm a Celeb invasion in the hourly feeds.

Does raise a serious point though about IRN - a service which is now almost totally reliant it seems on the News Channel (the number of cuts with rustling papers / keyboards, obviously ripped from tv), what happens if it does close.

You mean that Sky don't do that?

Some of the worse radio bulletins I have ever heard have been on Talk Sport and are abysmal! (as supplied by Sky.) The amount of errors that occur is laughable but it does make me listen more.

PS It would be a shame if the ITVNC did close down. For such a small budget I think they do bo00dy well for the sevice they provide.

If BBC News 24 operated for the same price I would be happy. But I am forced to pay for BBC News 24 aservice and absolutely can't watch the service provided. BUT - since the SKY relaunch BBCNews24 is so far superior to Sky News! Well done SKY on losing more viewers to an inferior service!

Indeed and many programme packages are just 1min 45 extended interview cuts which will often say "...was speaking to ITN's Owen Thomas" at the bottom rather than someone sitting there and putting together a package designed for radio.

IRN are very lazy these days, but that comes with all the cutbacks they made. But I remember a fair few years ago it wasn't unusual to have "Cut 99" by about 10pm - now you struggle to reach 50.

But anyway, that's a side issue from the whole debate - it does raise a serious question indeed of what would happen if the ITV News Channel does close down. Ultimately it would impact on ITV's main bulletins too with less reporters out on the road and covering stories.

The service IS something more than what we had under the ITN News Channel days, where reports could come from ITV, Channel 4 or 5. At least all reports are (understandably) from ITV's bulletins but with more lives than ever before and stories on the news channel get reported that you don't get on the main bulletins.

But I still can't help but feel it's a news channel for well...the sake of a news channel. They have a go but don't really give it their all and then wonder why they're in third place. Such potential, yet not taken advantage of at all.

Sky News Radio is rubbish. Sometimes much worse than IRN - though they make it clear than when you sign up to them (and they're do a cheaper deal than IRN these days thanks to operating over the web and satellite feeds through a normal digibox...) you're able to take any audio from Sky News you desire. The point is they don't do it for you, so you have to be a bit on the ball ready for Adam Boulton to speak about Tony Blair so you can get a 15 second cut rather than nothing at all. A bit of a pain but they're getting a higher profile, especially with Chrysalis using only them and dropping IRN completely now.

So in a two week period, Fox beat ITVNC across all platforms (with Fox only available on Satellite) on 3 days.

And you think ITV are not at "panic" stations.

This is the end of the road. Fox mainly covers US stories (much to the alarm of the rest of the world) from a US perspective that is largely irrelevant for UK viewers.

And yet it can beat the ITV NC on several occasions with limited availability.

The logical conclusion (which I and many others have been stating for years) is that ITVNC is irrelevant.

It's got less than 100 days left on air, and to be honest nobody is seriously going to miss it.

Sorry, can't resist -

"The Final Countdown..."

As we've seen from the ongoing Sky News v BBC News 24 ratings threads, viewing figures are so inaccurate at that level, they are even less reliable at the ITV News Channel level.

Fox News beating ITV News over 3 days in 14 probably is based on one extra person watching Fox

Fantastic discussion guys - gone completly off topic but interesting none the less.

Going back to the issue I posted this thread for, how do you think ITV News would be affected on screen if the threat of closing the news channel led to a strike.

Would ITV be obligated to try and get some news programming on air, or would it just be repeats of the Planets Funniest Animals!

And would it affected C4 News - after all, would Jon Snow cross the picket line?

Short bulletins coming from the CSO with that awful man off the travel programme, one would imagine.

C4 would be half an hour's worth, with only one live maybe and mostly filmed reports.

ITV News Channel? Plop some freelancer in the CSO and keep recording bulletins.

If I remember correctly, in the case of Channel 4's news provider being unable to provide a bulletin for them, the BBC would be obliged to step in and ensure that some form of news bulletin goes to air.

Yes, but doesn't that show how sh!te ITVNC have been doing- they shouldn't be running so low that they're barely scraping above a US news network that gets no leg-up from a terrestrial news service watched by millions in this country. You can't even claim the EPG effect- ITVNC appears ahead of Fox on the EPG.

The basic fact is this- if Fox News was available to the same number of people (on Sky, cable and freeview) as the ITVNC for the same number of hours......

Fox would be beating ITV on every single count.

That's a pathetic indictment of just how poor the ITVNC is.

I shouldn't expect there would be a strike, if the service closed down, the people who solely work on it would lose their job. I'm not sure that is the basis of a strike, especially as most people who work on it, do it as part of working on ITV News for ITV1