Northern Ireland news thread

Well that wasn't too bad for the first programme. Same music and graphics as UTV Live but the walls of the set have been recoloured by lighting and the plasmas feature the new UTV Live Tonight animating logo. The programme consisted of a couple of special reports at the start about the killings of the soldiers last month, then an interview in the studio. We also crossed to Gillian in the studio twice for the rest of the day's news and the Business Brief which included a look at the markets. The end of the programme saw a look at tomorrow's local newspapers, followed by the weather.

We also now have UTV Live Tonight sign-offs, even on the reports that were shown earlier on UTV Live!

I'm sure it'll be available to watch on uPlayer shortly but I'll be adding caps to UTV Today over the coming days.

I like the purple tint to the set, it works well with the rest of the set.

I liked getting Gillian involved with reading the news; a bit of a nod to the early days of UTV Live when Paul/Mike handed over to Kate/Pamela at the newsdesk; or even the older days when the likes of David Dunseith, Gordon Burns and Gloria Hunniford handed over to Brian Baird on Reports or Good Evening Ulster... it will be interesting to see if the duty announcer will be the newsreader each evening or whether this will be a new (and nice) role for Gilly at UTV. Though I assume it meant no IVC from her if she was also announcing tonight

Part of me thinks there'll be a lot of special reports by Sharon O'Neill on this new UTV Live Tonight bulletin And "our Aberdeen studio"? UTV still ruing not getting their mits on STV when they could, eh? Typical Paul going into robot mode at the sight of a potential cock-up towards the end in the newspaper review.

Pamela is still around - she did the lunchtime bulletin today. And whoever read the weather bulletin cannot read very WELL, emphasising the last word of each sentence HARSHLY.

Sorry, it seems like I'm turning this into a rota thread...

Just watched the forecast and God she's awful! She's done the weather a few times now and clearly hasn't got any better! They must have picked her up wherever they found Lynda Fulford!

Nice to see Pammy's still about, wonder what she's being doing though as she hasn't filed any reports for UTV Live since the first week of the relaunch.

Some interaction between Paul and Gillian would be good - when Paul hands over to Gillian, she doesn't acknowledge that he's even there - she just goes straight into reading the news straight to camera. A nice nod, and smile to Paul would be good.

Just to mark yesterday saw the first time in 16 years of in-vision weather presentation on UTV the main forecast was presented by... Pamela Ballantine.

Pam did the weather out-of-vision yesterday lunchtime so it was a surprise to see her in-vision instead of Frankie. She did well, too.

A bittersweet irony, though, that both the lunchtime and 6 o'clock bulletin was presented by Tina Campbell.

Catching up on yesterday's UTV Live bulletins...

Who was directing the lunchtime bulletin? It was full of awful fade through blacks between VTs. Never mind that the bulletin was PRESENTED by Rita McNULTY - her of the unbearable weather VOICEOVERS. I beseech those at Havoc House, either give her lessons in how to read a news bulletin or take her off newsreading duties, she is truly an embarrassment to watch.

Surprised they didn't let Frank Mitchell do the report on the hearsay on good weather this summer, instead of the equally ingratiating Sarah Dobson; then again actual meteorologists were being interviewed in that piece... And Graham Little did the sport in the studio as well as the Glentoran/Linfield report.

Meanwhile today, I noticed UTV Live bulletins from the CSO studio still skip on subtitles during some VTs - didn't they claim in the Programme Review that all bulletins were now subtitled? And while BBC NI had plenty of sports reporters covering the last day of the League, only freelancer John Flack was heard on the three sports VTs on the bulletin. Makes me wonder why UTV still bother covering sport, really.

And UTV have a Twitter, which only links to stories on their websites.

For all those who believe this thread has a UTV bias - as I'm in NI for the weekend I can watch Newsline, so anything worth remarking on from Broadcasting House, I will bring to the thread

And for those who missed it last Thursday (and as I couldn't upload it on Friday), here's screen grabs of Pamela Ballantine's weather forecast:



(Sorry for stretching the board)

No Paul on Live at Six tonight, Lynda was joined by a possibly-pregnant Alison Fleming.

And Lynda mentioned she would be presenting UTV Live Tonight in place of Paul.

Suppose I can't complain about Belfast bias on UTV Live tonight; the Derry to Dungiven dual carriageway was the second story, and they even sent Tina Campbell to do a live (and it really was and all) OB in the rain from outside the new wing at Altnagelvin Hospital and introduce reports by Mark McFadden and Gareth... Wilkinson on the Queen's visit to the city.

Back after a day off, and Paul Clark went into robot mode during the news in brief section.

Didn't I say he'd make it there one day?



The boy did good, as well, a refreshing change from Paul Clark.

Anyone else think Tina Campbell looks like Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka with her hair like that?