News at Ten - Weeknights on ITV1

Hmm, I didn't think Trevor would last this long on the programme. Any rough idea when he's going? Though it is slightly cringeworthy seeing him look at the wrong camera from time to time, he brings a certain nostalgic feel to the bulletin. Also nice to see a 'bit' (I stress the word 'bit'...) of banter between him and Julie after the 'and finally' on last night's bulletin...

I have to say that having the first report of part two playing on the overhead 'glass panel', at the start of the second half of the bulletin, works so much better than having the mandatory NaT logo. I'm growing to like this News at Ten look but the (92-99) closing music is not really washing with me. I don't like the way its been remade (especially the run-up to the middle-bit, if that's what you could call it!). Why they couldn't have just reused the original 92-99 closing music is beyond me.

News at Ten may not be beating the BBC but I still think it's a bloody good programme. Tonight's special assignment by James Mates into the rising cost of food prices and the consequences in the developing world was very well executed and offered a different perspective on the use of crops as biofuels. I intend to tune in for the rest of this week to follow his reports.

Somehow, NAT just feels like a more polished, structured programme than the BBC News at Ten. Maybe it's because it has a proper start and finish, unlike the BBC. In any case, I think some of the criticisms in the press have been very unfair on ITN. They're producing an excellent alternative to the BBC. Yes, Trevor may be getting on in years and is hardly associated with cutting edge journalism, but he does have a certain charm about him and bucketfuls of authority.

I agree entirely, itsrobert.

Unfortunately I don't often get see News at Ten - I wish it was available to view on-demand online.

Yes, that would be a step forward. In fact, I'd like to see all the ITV News bulletins online. Whenever I want an online news bulletin, I always go to the BBC because they're the only one who offer the service.

It would definitely be worth putting News at Ten up as that is a complete roundup of the days news unlike Lunchtime & Evening where news in some cases is still breaking.

I haven't watched NAT for a while, first time for a while tonight. Julie looked far more comfortable and it was good to see them talking (a little bit) at the end but Trevor still looks far too smug.

It seems people are still in the habit of switching toe BBC1 for their news then at 10pm. Last night ITV1 had 10m watching the football, yet the BBC still got twice as many news viewers as ITV, and I struggle to see what ITV can do to overturn the situation.

They're in a difficult position too - really they are trying to compete with a like for like product, but maybe they do need to face facts and offer an alternative, dare we say, dumbed down, product which appeals to a different audience, rather than the same.

There is a problem in having an ad-break between the 9pm programme (well in this case the 7:30pm football) and News at Ten, which does give people a chance to channel-hop. I notice that even though the match overran a bit (to about 10:00) they still ran an ad-break, with NAT starting at something like 10:03. Think that's the first time its been late so far.

I doubt that 'story' about News at Ten being axed 'before the summer' was true, but I really do think that they have a chance of building up an audience. Viewing habits of course don't change overnight but give it sometime and I'm sure they'll get a substantial, regular amount of viewers. Look at the Evening News. That didn't initially really inherit the just-axed NAT viewing figures (or indeed the figures that the old 5:40 news got) but over the past decade or so it has become the most watched news bulletin on ITV and gets viewing figures of around the 4 or 5 million mark. Maybe not a fair comparison as the audiences for the EN and NAT may be slightly different but hopefully you get what I mean.

Following on from the 2 hour documentary.. Gerry and Kate McCann will be live in the NaT studio tonight.

I assume that is a joke.

I think the main problems are that ITV really needs a strong lead into NaT, then it does well, they also don't need a 10.00pm ad-break otherwise people will hop over. As for last night the problem is that the game was over by about 9.40pm and that is probably when most people turn off, turn over or go home depending on how they watched the game.

I doubt News At Ten will be axed, it does OK for it's slot, it's getting more viewers than what News At 10:30 was getting last year, so ie there are more people watching the later Evening News now. Just give it time to develop and I'm sure it'll build a steady audience. I think it maybe worth waiting until I'm a Celebrity comes back on, that often has strong ratings and it will probably get people watching until the end, I'm sure ITV would cash in on that. Rememeber a few years ago when ITV had about three episodes of Coronation Street and I'm a Celebrity on in one night, the ratings were good, the News at 10:30 ratings benefited because of this. Just wait and see....

Another thing I would like to add is that it just makes Commercial sense to have News At Ten, the 10:00-10:30 slot was often hard to fill and nothing was built in that slot and it was a big pain for the schedulers, where as having the News At 10:00 and then the rest of the programmes after 10:40 makes more sense commerically.

Unless I misread the promo during the break... unfortunately it's not a joke.

Let's just hope they booked a babysitter.