ITV to trial integrated newshour

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/13/itv-6pm-news-new-format

ITV to run some off air pilots to trial running an integrated news hour featuring international, national and regional news.

I don't like the sound of this personally, as it would no doubt put ITV's regional news head to head with the BBC's, and therefore would lose.

It's not the first idea of revamping the news hour - and hopefully like the others it won't make it to screen. The Evening News is just nicely positioned at 6.30pm and moving it to 6pm will only hit ratings, and similarly with the regional news - removing it's head start on the BBC will simply cost it's viewers.

I wonder if STV will retry for its own Newshour?

Running the teatime national and regional bulettins on ITV1 and BBC1 against each other will surely spell disaster. As it is most BBC regions beat their ITV equivilant (isn't UTV the only exception) and this will surely be a prelude to killing off the ITV regional news (in ITV plc regions) entirely. Its hard to say what the effect would be in NI where UTV has been traditionally stronger though.

If the news was integrated how would this affect UTV and Scotland? Would they be forced to have to do the same?

Well STV was going to be piloting its own newshour of sorts and opting out of ITV News, but the Tories put an end to that.....

STV can also beat its BBC rival...

I suspect there's a little more to this story than The Guardian implies...

Simply playing with the format between 6 and 7 would not require Ofcom's permission as long as the same volume of regional news was broadcast.

I wonder if this is really the rumoured idea of creating an hour long programme which would be a combination of a national news bulletin (say 15 mins), a shorter regional bulletin (say 15 mins) and a topical magazine programme all tied together as one package.

As long as News at Ten is in place, there's no legal requirement for a half hour bulletin in the early evening. ITV could argue that 15 minute region programmes were sustainable in a way that the current system isn't.

However there's the big practical problem for STV... and, of course, I doubt if significant cuts to the amount of news for Wales and NI would prove politically acceptable.

Having it as one newshour - I don't see the point. The only reason I can see why ITV want to do this is to shrink the output of local news.

I have a feeling in a years time we will have the situation where local news at 6pm is now 15mins, and a new 30min programme will air at 10.30pm.

Sounds like ITV are trying to go down the old "sixty minutes" route and that wasn't too successful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixty_Minutes_(TV_series)

I wouldn't mind if they started the 6pm with an intro to the national bulletin with 60 secs heads, then the regional 30 min bulletin which then leads into the ITV Evening News. This would replace the current preview which airs half way through the current regional bulletin in ITV PLC regions.

Yet in England and Wales at least if they went down the route of overlapping parts with the BBC bulletin, it will continue the devaluation of the regional news programme, which deep down, ITV want to happen.

I suggested something similar on a certain other media website the other day for post 2014. With my idea, the Regional News segments would be as follows...

'3 x 5 minute bulletins in the morning during Daybreak, an early evening opt out of 7 minutes within the 18:30 (6:30) National News (which could move to 18:00) and a 5 minute opt out during the 22:00 (10:00) News. I say this as I feel National News will be cut too.

ITV plc would need to provide a couple of more regions though such as the old HTV West and Central East. Got to be cheaper than the current plan though'.

Obviously the current plan is for a 18:00 News programme though...