Editorial continues to be an issue, although if they can produce more themed weeks of extended reporting such as Ria Chatterjee's poverty series, this should be enough to keep LT distinctive without resorting to showbiz padding.
I can hardly believe that a city the size of London needs to produce "themed weeks" of stories when there must be dozens of legitimate newsworthy things to cover. Same with the entertainment and celebrity garbage - how on earth can that be justified?
I'm always massively disappointed when I tune in to London Tonight. I hate to do the obvious comparrison, but STV News at 6 is likely to have a full running order of decent stories with *maybe* an "and finally" piece at the end - and there's less people living in the catchment of the central belt than in London.
Just how do London manage to be so poor?
BBC London News spent 7 years featuring the Olympics on a daily basis, which makes LT's new themed week feature seem nothing in comparison. Yet, thanks to the licence fee, they have enough reporters to provide in-depth investigations and cover arts, business etc as well as London Tonight's former diet of crime stories which kept the LNN show going.
LT since 2004 has suffered from ITV's various changes to it's target audience. Especially when ITV News was dumbed down in the noughties with showbiz padding and copious plugs for it's dire reality shows. Along with it's plugs for movies and tv shows, it became "Showbiz Tonight" in all but name. Yet it managed to keep Alistair Stewart and Katie Derham which had some stability with presentation at least.
Faye Nickolds tenure has been mixed, she finally sorted out their editorial policy, bringing it more newsy, but has suffered from male co-presenters not being as good as expected, so copied the BBC London mantra of a female solo presenter and is now suffering from budget cuts which has led to the current situation.
They have Nina Hossain for now, but I wonder if they as suggested have Al back on the 6 who'd then walk across the studio to host the evening news or have Lucrezia Millarini as the new presenter. She'd be cheaper that Hossain and while lacking in gravitas, seems eager and crosses over from biz to news, although I feel she needs more experience before gaining the lead presenting role of all the ITV regional news bulletins.