ITV Wales to get new news studio

Firstly apologies for appearing to go off topic. My intention was to identify the Welsh service with the rest of ITV's services. As stated in the HTV thread, I think that the fact that both the BBC and ITV services in Wales are moving to modern premises is great news. I truly believe Wales has different needs to England's regions. As a separate entity, it needs full programmes that showcase it's Political, Current Affairs etc as do Scotland and Northern Ireland (I even think there is a case for the Channel Islands to get a little more Non-News programming).

However when it comes to presenting the News programming, I truly believe it's the content that matters not how many presenters the programme has. I feel generally the Weather forecast could be told by the Newscaster though, especially if the Forecast is being told by someone unfamiliar with the Region (which is quite often these days). ITV's Regional Political News could also be merged in with the English regions News programming as England is generally well served with National Current Affairs programmes unlike their other smaller Home Nations counterparts. I do however concede that Brekkie has a point when it comes to the Sports desk side of things.

Has this been officially announced or is it just insider news at this stage?

Notice the photo of the set on page 1 has two seats

Presumbly they'll add one for guests and sport presenter etc.

Looks like a name change might be on the cards too - from next Monday, the main programme is listed in Sky's EPG as ITV News Wales at 6.

Andrea Byrne will be returning of course, with Ruth Wignall returning to weather - the EPG suggests both Byrne and Hill will present but that means little (BBC Wales Today is invariably advertised as being presented by both Jamie Owen and Lucy Owen despite always being single-headed).

At the moment it's always introduced as 'ITV News in Wales' or, particularly during the headline recap, as 'the national news of Wales from ITV' - reminiscent of a similar tagline in the HTV days - but never as 'ITV News Cymru Wales' (begs the question of whose idea that was...). 'Wales at 6' would be easier to use as a standalone brand of course, as with Granada Reports, so it'll be interesting to see what they do.

They did use to say on Granada after the re-brand "Hello and Welcome to the ITV News, this is Granada Reports" but that was short lived and they just say "This is Granada Reports" again now.

Will be interesting to see Newsweek Wales from this news studio.

Still confuses me to this day why they were rebranded last year as ITV Cymru Wales when they no longer make any Welsh language programmes at all.


Interesting they're being allowed to use 'Wales at 6'. I'd have thought the branding posse would be summoning ITV News Wales on them though maybe they've realised that the general public would probably never call the programme that, most likely still calling it HTV News.

EDIT: Just found out they do still make some shows for S4C actually including Sion a Sian. Either way none of the news output is in Welsh so still makes the ITV News Cymru Wales name nonsensical.

Most of the current affairs programmes on S4C are made by ITV. Y Byd ar Bedwar springs to mind.

Surprised it's not ITV News Wales Tonight to be honest, remember when they made a big thing about going from Central News at Six to Central Tonight?

ITV News Wales should be the name in my opinion. The Granada Reports name should have been scrapped too, in favour of ITV News Granada. If you're going to rebrand then do it properly!

And of course one reporter still refers to it as Central Tonight