Looks like the BBC won by a clear million...
4.9 vs 3.8
How accurate are these 'initial' figures though? Did the BBC definitely win?
If things are done anything like Australia they're neurotically accurate..the little box checks what you're watching, and who's there, every 15 minutes and the people who have them are selected quite deliberately.
How odd that all the posters predicting the BBC would be "trounced" and that they were running scared, forgetting that most people aren't really that interested in CGI and snazzy graphics, have suddenly disappeared into the ether!
Regardless of that, ITV's audience for its late news jumped by over 2 million people last night. That's a major achievement. In recent times, the ITV bulletin has been firmly in the shadow of the BBC but now they appear to be real competition. I've no doubt that the BBC are worried. They may have narrowly won that battle last night but there's a long way to go to win the war.
Nice to see they've gone for a simple fade in-fade out aston which i think works very well. The ITV News one and the regional ones especially are way too over-animated for my liking.
Hate to be picky, but the aston is a split outwards-diagonal wipe in, then fade out...
As I said earlier in the thread the point for ITV isn't to beat the BBC in the ratings.
Sure they'd love to but they're not going to move NaT as long as Grade is around.
They've realised that regardless of the quality of their bulletin at 10pm it will get at least 2m viewers, and if doing well should get 3-3.5m. That's still a good 1m short of the BBC.
But the point is that they could spend 10x the annual NaT budget on the magical 100 hours of primetime TV at 10pm across a year and regularly end up with 2m viewers.
News at Ten is a cheap way of accepting defeat in primetime and saving money for the 7-10pm slots and weekends. It's the commercial beast.
As horrific as ratings of 3m for a primetime news show would have sounded 10 years ago, the decline in audience share for terrestrial news is FAR slower than for other genres. A bad terrestrial bulletin still pulls in the punters.
How odd that all the posters predicting the BBC would be "trounced" and that they were running scared, forgetting that most people aren't really that interested in CGI and snazzy graphics, have suddenly disappeared into the ether!
Regardless of that, ITV's audience for its late news jumped by over 2 million people last night. That's a major achievement. In recent times, the ITV bulletin has been firmly in the shadow of the BBC but now they appear to be real competition. I've no doubt that the BBC are worried. They may have narrowly won that battle last night but there's a long way to go to win the war.
I disagree as there are two major factors that would affect that extra 2 million. One is that it was the first night, no doubt some tuned in to see the hype - they'll probably go back to watching what they usually do of an evening. Secondly, the news was earlier. OK, so it would hardly account for an extra 2 million viewers, but it certainly would make a difference.
Personally I prefer the 10 o'clock News - substance over style has always been the case between ITV and the BBC
What is going to be most significant in the ratings battle is the 'handover' of viewers from the previous programme to the bulletins. The 10 O'Clock had a much larger handover than NaT. If people are watching the beeb they're unlikely to switch over to ITV to see the news, if they can get the 'same' on the channel they're watching. Same thing goes for people watching ITV before 10pm.
The opening credits to the show again highlights ITVs focus towards London and retreat from the regions. There's more to the UK than the River Thames, London Eye and Big Ben. Living in North West I feel excluded, goodness knows what people in Scotland must think.
I don't understand this kind of self-victimisation. London is our capital city, and Big Ben (the best known clock in the country that we time a lot of events by) has been News At Ten's symbol for decades, so it's hardly a retreat. Also ITV are based in London. The actual news content is about the entire UK and the world as well, so I don't see the problem.
Personally I think Scotland is more like a region of the UK in terms of population (I know it's a country in it's own right) so it should be treated as every other local reigion in terms of national news. There are more people living in London than Scotland for example. In other large counties in England there are the same number of people as Scotland. Wales has the same amount of people as Scotland but they never complain, mainly because the population is 3 million odd and nothing ever happens there. Same applies to Scotland.
Yes I think most would agree that News At Ten (Mon -Thursday Only) did get off to a good start last night. But some things never change...Like Trevor looking at the wrong camera twice.Come on Trevor, surely for a million you can get that right. After all, it is the camera with the red light on!!!! I thought he looked distinctly uncomfortable throughout the programme. Julie is a class act and I think now ITN's best female presenter by far.
ITV has wasted this opportunity with News At Ten's return.The original always had a centre break and this was ITV's biggest earner. So in times of hardship with ad revenue ,why scrap this ITV? and of course the old News At Ten was longer. Though I understand that last night's programme took a two minute over run.
Of course we must question yet again ITV's committment to local news. No mention of it following News At Ten by the announcer. No mention of local news by Trevor or Julie. Nothing by the announcer after the National weather and NO billing of regional news in many of the papers and listings mags and then to top it all, you have a four minute break before the regional late news starts.Surely viewers are going to take that as their cue to turn over to BBC where local News DOES start at 22:25 or just switch off and go to bed.
I'm surprised that NAT didn't beat the BBC in the ratings - I'd have thought the curiosity factor and the huge publicity might have put it ahead for the first programme at least.
Overall, I was impressed with the programme. It had a feeling of prestige which I don't think the news on ITV has had for a long while. It felt refreshing to have a straight, relatively gimmick-free news bulletin. Following budget cuts and the closure of the ITV News Channel, it's nice to get a feeling that ITV might actually value its news output for a change.
Yes I think most would agree that News At Ten (Mon -Thursday Only) did get off to a good start last night. But some things never change...Like Trevor looking at the wrong camera twice.Come on Trevor, surely for a million you can get that right. After all, it is the camera with the red light on!!!!
Oh come on, he might not be the best presenter, but you sit up and listen when he comes on, don't you?
NBC posted:
ITV has wasted this opportunity with News At Ten's return.The original always had a centre break and this was ITV's biggest earner. So in times of hardship with ad revenue ,why scrap this ITV?
Yes, they should really give the audience a chance to switch to the competition.
