I've always thought that ITV are generally good at telling you what you need to know, while the BBC are more likely to tell you what they think you need to know.
And with budget coverage, ITV's coverage has always been more consumer focused while the BBC's is generally more on the politics of it all.
Quite an amusing close last night; the 'And Finally...' was about a group of teens in the US who were being made to listen to (among others) Barry Manilow songs. They played a snippet of one of his songs just as Mark was introducing the story - which he then said was "from Julie's record collection"! Loved his little sign-off too, with Julie obviously enjoying the banter: "..from the Barry-loving Julie and from me, goodnight."
I know! As much as I've disliked Mark's presentation style over the years, he's breathed new life into NaT. Trevor never ever bantered like that. If only Mark had Trevor's authority, everything would be perfect.
To be fair to Mark he's always had a pretty good chemistry with his co-hosts and it's one of the reasons the Evening News went from strength to strength in the last few years.
It's completely naturally too and doesn't overshadow the purpose of the bulletin at all, unlike within regional news where it's often so forced and a complete embarrassment to watch.
The sound quality is absolutely awful so I switched over to BBC News, which for me is the better ten o'clock news bulletin. Also, what is the point of sending Mark Austin there and IIRC ITN are cutting budgets, so why are they wasting money sending Mark Austin out to Mumbai?
I mean why are the wasting money covering the story at all, it would have been cheaper to ignore it entirely and just send Chris Choi out to stand outside the nearest Woolworths instead
The constant talk of how much stuff costs on ITV News is really tiresome, they are either seen as being cheap or spending too much money!
I usually disagree with sending presenters out on location, mainly because by the time they get there it's all over and we're left watching them stand in the middle of nowhere with nothing gained for the viewer. However, I think ITN have made the right call with this one. The story is still ongoing and Mark was able to take some of the pressure off Juliet Bremner who was the main reporter on the Evening News. It brought a bit more immediacy to the story as well.
I've not heard anything about ITN cutting budgets recently from people in the know. When ITV or C4 cut their news budgets then ITN does have to make cutbacks to the services they offer but I'm not aware of that happening at the moment.
Manxy, with all due respect, I wouldn't consider sound quality to be enough to warrant a change of channels. It wasn't so bad that you couldn't tell what Mark was saying. Surely it's what they're saying/doing that counts? I thought News at Ten was once again a good offering from ITN tonight.
Im not a regular watcher but I was quite impressed with News At Ten tonight,although I don't think the England Cricket team going home warrants a mention when so many have lost their lives but granted other channels have been guilty of that too.
