STV to drop ITV Evening News

Given the news appearing in several threads, they have been merged into this one.

Yes, I live in Scotland, not on the moon.

This is just a proposal, but there's nothing to suggest that it wouldn't commence with national/international, and then move to move local stories. Or the other way around.

In any event it would still be one hour of news covering all the ground that we see already.

Except it would be consistently presented and have a local slant.

Not a bad thing - but then I always thought there was merit in the idea of a Scottish Six.

But 2 shows somewhat breaks it up and news is already a drag when its half an hour, let alone a full hour! Think back to the LN from a few years back ... a lot more people would be willing to sit through 2 30 minute news shows over 1 at an hour long.

but that reason is not vaild!

old London tonight was just about london nothing else you still have 20min nationl news before that!

this has everything, local news, national news, weather, sport, Inter-national news. and I dare none of that puffy whuffy filler crap like fates

The two shows are currently broken up by either a set of trails (BBC) or a handful of commercials (Ch3) - and goodness me, in the case of the BBC, even the sets look the same. The national and local have different presenters, but perhaps John McKay would take the helm for the first part with Louise for the local segment.

In any event, its all academic until they announce what their proposal is - and even then it will only affect those of us in STV land.

With all due respect to yourself and others, I find myself having to be careful to sift through the opinions of nay sayers who never ever watch my local station.

In the case of the wider STV changes it continues to be astonishing to me (having been on this forum for almost 10 years) that long-standing members would argue for a homogenised London based ITV service, seeing their local stations and studios be swallowed up and shut down.

Its difficult to argue that this is "another case of cost-cutting" from STV, when patently it would be a more expensive option - and yet that's what I've been reading here.

Baffling. Just baffling.

I'm a bit concerned about the STV North programme if I'm honest. According to this BBC News story, the Aberdeen programme could cease to exist with the host programme being in Glasgow.

I grew up in the Highlands, and North Tonight always had a loyal local following as it covered many stories which Reporting Scotland failed to pick up on either due to percieved lack-of-importance, relevance to Scotland as a whole or simply fewer resources up north.

On the whole, STV is trying hard to be distinct but I'm not totally convinced it's all being done for the viewers.

No commitment there though to watch the full hour - you know what you're getting in each half hour and watch accordingly. Of course many stick with the BBC or ITV for the full hour - personally I skip the stories about old ladies being attacked, complaints about wheelie bins and inane uncomfortable banter and just watch the national news.

In addition, once you ditch the ITN reports that don't affect Scotland, what are you left with? Replacing them with reports related to Scotland certainly fills a half-hour slot nicely, but spread across an hour and I think rather than more news of significance to the Scottish audience, you'd just end up with more fluff.

At least I can see STV's reasoning behind this, unlike their axing of top dramas, but I can't see how it will be financially viable

I can just see it going down the road of STV arguing about how much they need to pay for ITV News when they don't show all the bulletins, or arguing about how much to pay ITN to provide content for their programme

I wonder if they will now axe 'the hour' or are they really going to provide 2 hours of local content every night

But noone will watch a single hour long news show. News for an hour doesn't work, its why most news shows are no more than 30 minutes long. Personally I only usually watch the first few minutes of Granada Reports and the ITV headlines. If a story interests me, I'll flick through the channels until it comes on. If no story interests me I'll put another channel on. On the whole the news is very boring and as I've already said drags at even half an hour. If it is an hour long it is going to be much worse.

Gavin Scott- I wouldn't make assumptions based on the regions you see in the side bar thing. Also 6 years is hardly "nearly 10 years". With respect, that post has a very 'holier than thou' feel to it.

But STV aren't going to spend any more money. It is part of a plea for public funding, and dependent on that.

In theory I think it is a good idea, but it is some way away from happening - doesn't the current Broadcasting Act mandate the national news on ITV1, STV need public funding, and they will need to negotiate a supply deal with ITN, largely owned by ITV. A few hurdles to mount. The cynic in me thinks PR stunt.

I joined here in March 2001. I'm well aware of the actual locations of lots of members here.

This STV scenario has been rumbling for months, and the most vociferous complaints about the service to the viewers have been from those not living in Scotland.

If you find me pointing that out to be a "holier than thou" attitude, that's entirely your prerogative.

Just a small correction. Any member whose registration date is listed as "Before January 2003" could have registered any time up to March 2001. That's when TV Forum launched and when several members, myself included, signed up. We suffered a very large crash in January 2003 which wiped the database and everyone had to re-register.