STV News

I have watched the West edition and have to confess that apart from the 'Anchorman' title sequence - this is a step forward for STV News.

It is clear they are attempted to go down the US route of local news - but if this means that STV North has a Highland-based news programme in the future, then I am more than happy with the path they are following. If news presenters striking a pose for the titles is the price we have to pay for more localised news programmes - then I can handle that.

Should Dundee have a programme, I could see Andrea presenting this. She is appearing on the STV Player under STV News at Six - Dundee (perhaps something is meant by this inclusion?). An Inverness programme could be presented by Nicola, but she is a superb field journalist and I would not like to see her stuck in the studio. Not sure who they could get to do this though - perhaps someone like Chris Harvey or even Debi Edward?

Localised news works well in the English regions.

The mix of news around Scotland and a quick regional 'catch up' works well.

I wish John, Sean and Raman luck but also Juliet and Caroline.

Let us hope this is the start of good things for STV...fingers crossed but money will determine what they can or will do - time will tell!!

Before the split for central all of the STV news at six on player where named
STV news at Six - Dundee,
- Glasgow
- Edinburgh
- Aberdeen
This was because it included the 5/10min bulletin for this region without viewers having to search the rest of the site for the localised content

Oh dear...

Cliched titles, naff music, cheesy headline transitions, awful presenter vignettes - very early 00s Central News meets mid 90s BBC Look North Newcastle - except they both did it better even then. In fact I thought it was the early 00s until I realised it was widescreen and the stories were current. STV are hampered with that dreadful corporate logo though - very difficult to do anything interesting with that millstone.

And the set... Less said the better...

On the plus side Juliet's a competent presenter, with good delivery, and I have no idea of the editorial values - which are for more important at the end of the day.

100% agree about the website.....it is not at all user friendly......it is a tangled up mess!

Does anyone else think the music has a bit of a dancing on ice sound to them towards the end of the titles?

Thanks newsjunkie for the explanation about the Stv player - that could well be why Andrea is shown for Dundee
and Norman is shown for Aberdeen.

Guess we'll have to see what changes will occur in the Stv North patches - I personally think we'll be in line with our southern neighbours fairly soon...

I can see why folk are rather cynical but have to agree with Gav's earlier comments. We need to give this time to establish itself - this is a big change and us Grampian viewers are still getting used to STV and not having North Tonight. I am all for change but it must be worthy and relevant to the viewer.

The east could tweak things better.The website stv/edinburgh should be ditched and replaced with stv.tv/news on screen; the logo and website removed from opening titles so not to cover Caroline's name; more cap gens for names and stories; not a fan of the website thing with Suzi; Make use of the main screen and not just have Stv news with North Bridge there all the time - change this more in relation to the story; Juliet should not be scribbling away between reports and after the titles VT ends - more eye contact with Caroline as well. All in all a promising start.

I genuinely hope the trial proves to be a resounding success.

West presentation now online at TV Live

I Pop into the Edinburgh office today; as I had to go and ask what the deal is with the titles, I got very good reply:

Deal with the presenters on the titles is to highlight the new face, as it well there have a major revamp:

Pretty good reason, but I still think its a bit cheesy and little American. but I as I said I have no complaints about content or how it was delivered. I may have waffled some rubbish while speaking to them:

Those sets would look so much nicer if they were simply white, instead of that dreary grey.

I think this whole venture has pros and cons. Firstly I can't fault the content - as usual STV News are continuing with their fantastic coverage that we've become so used to. The extra local stuff is a welcome change.

I'm in the east area and there's a few things I would improve on though. Graphics wise, the name astons look very slick, and the logo and URL at the side blend in well. But I would remove the DOG and have the logo and URL (which should be the main STV News site, not the Edinburgh one) appear only when the astons come on. At the moment it's covering up certain graphics and names.

The background on the screens look nice, but the picture quality from the Edinburgh studio is poor so certain things (like the STV News logo) are looking far too bright and unclear. The music is good (might just take a bit of getting used to) but the titles are a bit too cheesy for me. Perhaps change the pictures of the respective teams to shots of the local area or the main story of the day.

The set is nothing particularly special. I think I preferred the old one (even the old Edinburgh set), but it's by no means awful. And the delivery is good, Juliet is settling in well.

So I'd say I'm glad this trial is happening, but small graphical things could be improved.

What happened on east show today? I looked at the clip between Amazon and the next story, it just seems like something been cut: http://www.youtube.com/user/STVNews#p/a/u/2/VmzOzvVRoBk

All in all, I'm fairly impressed with the West/East spilt. The re-orchestrated music and titles get the thumbs up from me.

Although I've noticed what people have said about STV North, North couldn't do this kind of split unless they got Tayside on Sky. Which at present isn't going to happen anytime soon. I used to be an STV North viewer but got the bedroom aerials repointed to Blackhill seeing as Central covers more of South Perthshire than North does.

My only gripe with the West/East spilt is the DOG's. If they were on the left hand side of the screen it wouldn't bother me as much, but the one on Edinburgh seems to be on all the time and covers up some text and graphics at time.

Marks out of ten? I would say a safe 8.