News at Ten - Weeknights on ITV1

That always seems to be the case, when I'm a Celebrity had the 9pm slot, NaT's ratings went up constantly, when they've had something on that attracted 2 million at 9pm, then NaT will inherit that low figure. Even if ITV are showing Football which overruns, NaT still can get a decent audience, think back to the Champions League final last year, NaT didn't start until 11.15pm, but it still got 2.5 Million in the ratings.

Monday nights seem to be doing quite well for ITV at the moment, and I think NaT has benefited from this.

I expect the answer to this to be "no", but is the bulletin ever promoted on ITV2/3/4 during the 9pm hour?

OK, fair enough ITV2 is probably not the target audience, but ITV3 and ITV4 is - and on top of retaining a decent inheritance from ITV1, they've got to get people who switch to the news at 10pm to be switching to ITV instead of the BBC. Now, for a large chunk of the audience there isn't too much they can do, but certainly a quick promo on ITV3/4 around 9.45pm wouldn't do any harm at all.

Did I just see that then? A voice calling Mark Austin's name in the style of University Challenge?

Yes - very unusual!

It was just a little joke to tie in with the And Finally story, which was about one of the teams on University Challenge being disqualified. Nice to see the camera zoom in so dramatically tight on Mark's face, in the same manner as the show!

video?

Lol that was a great bit of banter for the 'And Finally...' story... loved it!

Next week's Radio Times shows Friday's News at Ten as being presented by James Mates. The details may be incomplete and there's nothing wrong with having James present it but I would have expected two presenters, at least one of whom was a NaT regular (probably Julie as Mark already presents twice as many bulletins), to avoid any suggestion that it's just the Late News at 10 pm.

Well, on that day, Lucy and Al are listed on the LN, and Geraint and Mary on the EN. Usually if Mary is in on Friday, she would do both LN and EN - but as Lucy is in as well, I assume Mary will be with James on NaT...Just an assumption, though.

Also the bulletin was put in at relative short notice, so they probably had James listed for the Late News, which was suddenly rescheduled to 10pm.

SHOCK, HORROR - ITV IN ANOTHER GOOD DECISION.
Meant as a newspaper headline

I am stunned that ITV has done something right. With its national news. That doesn't sound right.

After reading Mark Austin and Julie Etchingham's Daily Telegraph article, I must admit I was wrong about Julie on News At Ten. She has gone better over the last year, even though her "And that's tonight's News At Ten" can be repetitive.

It is also nice to hear, slowly but surely, News At Ten's ratings are going up. Mark and Julie are a good team but I think it would work quite nice if Mark and Julie headed up a team of rotating senior newscasters such as James finishing his role as Senior Correspondent and becoming a full-time newscaster. If/when that happens, will Tim Ewart become Senior Correspondent seeing as he, I believe, has being there the longest? - I fondly remember him as North America Correspondent talking about Mrs Thatcher and Mr Reagan. "Tim Ewart, News At One, outside the White House".

Back on track now and good decision by ITV and ITN.

I can't see James being promoted to "full time newscaster" anytime soon as at the moment he'd really just be part time, and also ITN seem to favour using reporters in presenting roles, and actually I think it's a rather good thing.

James Mates splits his time very effectively between the two roles too - it's not often he's not reporting on the (really) big stories or doing something for News at Ten - and he still manages to be back in the studio on a Friday to fulfil his presenting role.

So ten years ago tonight this happened:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpjRTizsm4U

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/entertainment/163389.stm
I'd forgotten about the headlines at 10pm, though I'm not sure that remained in place right through until News at Ten returned in 2001. Also mention there of a "News at Ten" on ITV2, which of course never happened, though ITN did launch their own version when the ITN News Channel launched in 2000.