News at Ten - Weeknights on ITV1

Long story here. ITV axed News At Ten in 1999 and the long term plan was to have the Nightly News on at 11pm for the forseeable future. Anyway about 18 months later the BBC announced they would move their News from 9pm to 10pm from Autumn 2001. Within a matter of weeks ITV announced they were going to reinstate NaT from January 2001. The BBC then in early October said they would be moving theirs to 10pm from 16th October 2000 rather than 2001, this annoyed ITV anyway. NaT MKII launched in January 2001 only to be axed in January 2004 thanks to it being hammered in the ratings by the BBC's offering.

I always thought the BBC News worked better at 9pm when ITV had a 10pm News, but in the past few years the output at 9pm on BBC One has got alot stronger, in comparsion to what they used to have at 9.30pm, not very often they would have Dramas, only documentaries and Movies on most nights from what I remember.

It was far more to do with post watershed drama than the news itself - BBC dramas kind of got lost at 9.30pm, with ITV picking up the viewers at 9pm and clinging on to them for News at Ten.

Reading that Brekkie, I can finally see what ITV were thinking back in 1999, that with the BBC 9'o clock news, they could get the majority of the audience at 9pm, and either continue that through the 10pm hour, inherhit that audience at 10pm and take that through to the 11pm news.
The problems only occured when the BBC decided to move their news to 10pm, and with their strong 9pm dramas and documentaries they have overtaken ITV who are still relying on simpler crime solving dramas.

Part of me feels that if they had stuck with the 11pm news it may have changed people's viewing habits, plus you wouldn't have had any problems finding half hour commissions.

ITV's excuse in the first place was so they could show Movies, Sports and Dramas in full without interruption, fair enough I see that point. Michael Green (former CEO of Carlton and ITN) also claimed that over time they would be losing the younger audience at 10pm, so again I can see that point.

Problem was when they came to utilising the new 10pm-11pm slot was that they had nothing decent to fill it with, maybe once or twice a week you would have a 2 hour Drama, rarely did Sport go on any later than 10pm and Movies weren't shown that often. Anything that was given the 10pm slot bombed and nothing ever lasted there at all. At this time there was no 10pm News on either BBC1 or ITV, so the BBC took the decision to move theirs to 10pm.

If they stuck with Nightly News it could have worked, but they damaged that and allowed the BBC to get the audience. But overall and my understanding is that getting rid of News At Ten in the first place was probably the biggest mistake ITV did in the last ten years.

I like it the way it is now, have it on at 10pm Mon-Thu and 11pm on Fridays so they can have that one night a week where Films or Dramas can be shown in full.

If I remember rightly ITV were basically told to bring back back News at Ten by the then regulator (was it Ofcom then or still the ITC?) because they were unhappy with the audience figures for the 11pm bulletin.

I certainly think they should have stuck with the Nightly News - it was actually a very good programme that provided a decent round up of the news in just 15 minutes.

Personally my main issue with the 1999 schedule was Trevor McDonald hosting the Evening News - perhaps a bit over qualified for the time slot and the Evening News certainly didn't begin to go from strength to strength until he returned to News at Ten and the co-hosted format was introduced.


As said though, filling the 10pm slot was the problem - though I definately think it was easier to fill an hour-long slot than a half-hour slot as we had with the 10.30pm bulletin.

I do like the Late News on Friday nights at around 11pm.

They made a mess though in the first couple of weeks of not having a proper Late News opening titles. The nightime backdrop the same as News at Ten was good but the terrible cut into the studio before the camera went upto the clockface was awful.

Surley they could have moved the hands to 11pm, after all it is computer generated.

Seems a bit flat having the Late News with the basic ITV1 News style, but I like the bulletin though.

The titles were made by an outside company and ITV/ITN forgot to ask for titles made with the hands at 11pm for the Friday late news. This mistake was not realised until the first Friday by which time it was too late and it would have cost a lot of money (thousands) to have the titles re-done. So, the bosses decided to cut the NAT titles down to avoid showing the clockface but this wasn't deemed satisfactory so they reverted to the ITV News style.

Anyone know the exact date of Trevor's last bulletin - I'm assuming the 27th of this month?

This must be Trevors 5th last bullitin, im rather looking forward to hearing his 'final' godbye!

Eh? It'll only be his second 'goodbye'. He left ITV News in December 2005 and returned in January this year.

He's said goodbye to News at Ten twice before though, though second time round I don't really recall any fuss about it being axed.