ITV wants to axe some regional news services

I would suspect that ITV want to draw attention to the changes as little as possible. If people tune in to see the same set and titles they're used to, I suspect many casual viewers won't realise they're watching a programme covering a wider area.

I think a big revamp would only highlight that things had changed.

So I'd expect nothing more than some different images in the opening titles, and maybe the projected 'window' backdrop being replaced with something generic - perhaps the graphical backdrop that Calendar already uses.

Edit: Got interrupted half way through writing that post. I see Phil beat me to it making a similar point.

Cant see programmes that awful generic backdrop as its not warming for a magazine programme but its going to be a problem which city to have behind presenters unless they just use a backdrop of where the programme is based.

I just think pinpointing a certain place will, again, just draw attention to many viewers that the programme is no longer coming from anywhere near them. I could see perhaps them having a selection of locations, and varying them daily?

I'm thinking the opposite really - they'll go for a bit of a revamp in order to try and hide the changes - less local content, but fancy new graphics!

Quick question - will the weather bulletin remain in the mid-morning slot both on weekdays and at lunchtime at the weekends, as generally speaking in recent years the local forecasts have remained where the news bulletins have been axed. I think they still air one mid-afternoon - or they did do at least.

It kind of makes sense to keep the mid-morning forecast as there isn't a national forecast after the ITV News summary.

Fancy new graphics cost money, the whole thing is about cutting costs. I think no new graphics.

The show must go on though - and it's probably about the right time for a revamp. After all, ITV weren't afraid to put the cash saved from axing Carol Vorderman into a new set for Countdown, so spending a few quid on a set of new graphics for the regional news would not be out of the question at all.

Yes.

As for the news titles - do the sub regions have subtle differences to the images used? If so surely there will have to be some sort of re-edit done even if the whole thing isn't reshot, just so you get a sequence representing (for example) the whole of the midlands, rather than just the east or west? Although have said that I guess if these existed they'd already be in use for the pan-regional bulletins.

They weren't killing Countdown off though.

Does the new Countdown set cost £800,000?!

Not in a month of Sundays.

That's totally irrelevant, Countdown is made by a different part of the company and it's paid for by Channel 4

The premise is the same though - just because the cash isn't available for the staff, doesn't mean it's not available for funding a relaunch. And really, by relaunch we're not meaning anything other than new titles and some tweaked graphics - I don't think anyone expects them to be changing the sets.