The STV News Tonight theme and some elements of the titles were clearly heavily inspired by CBS Evening News. Not a bad thing! The set is definitely a step up for STV. Here's hoping we see a slight refresh soon for the main bulletins. I think the broadly warm reception for the new studio will motivate some positive change elsewhere. One other observation - I felt STV News Tonight was a little overexposed and I noticed an improvement on Scotland Tonight, until they cut to the Sturgeon interview which had been recorded earlier and felt way too bright.
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A former member
I dont think there are any plans to change the main current STV news, not until the STV news tonight has been bedded in etc. personnel not a big fan of the music. On Scotland Tonight its a nice refresh after 5 years but I will mist those sofas.
Is the studio at PQ? It looks massive considering the main STV News hasn't changed at all.
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A former member
Yes that is Studio one, Here is some sneeky peek at the pics going up on TV live soonish:
Old set coming down and you can see there is plenty off room behide it. I also think the weather has now been moved to somewhere else in that building as the green sheet is gone.
It looks the same as any other news set - there seems little creativity these days everyone makes a copy of a previous news set and fiddles with it a bit.
Indeed, the new set is so much better than pretty much anything they've had before. There was a good period of time not that long ago where the STV news set was pretty much just a rostrum, desk, screen and some white panels! The current main news set is okay, but I do think the STV News Tonight/Scotland Tonight set blows it out of the water - I wonder if when they next update the main news set they'll do it in the style of this new set, so in Glasgow you could have a 360 degrees studio much like the BBC have been doing?
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A former member
Remember its not just Glasgow that has to get a new set its, Aberdeen and Edinburgh...
Also it seems STV2 has a main One Clock 30min programme covering all of Scotland, I get the felling STV would rather have this on the main channel.
Well, you look at the reasons why STV would do a separate and presumably reasonably costly news show on a smaller channel:
a) to keep OFCOM quiet about the fact they've essentially dropped the entire concept of city TV
b) they genuinely want to do a big flagship show for their new channel and think this will drive an audience
c) to quickly beat the BBC to the punch, win brownie points and push the brand - because doing it on STV would involve consultation, OFCOM approval to drop ITN and political problems with dropping the former Grampian region's standalone programme.
I'm finding it hard to believe they would have gone down this route if both a and c weren't in their mind. There are many political issues with the BBC doing a Scottish Six (the constitutional debate in the country and other parts of the UK pointing and going "eh, what about us?) STV now know they won't do it on BBC1. Imagine if, just before the BBC launches its channel, STV announced that it's going to take over the news hour on STV itself and do its own thing.
In fact, if they were concerned about having an hour long show without variation they could in theory do the Scottish, UK and international news at 6pm, and then the regions at 6.30pm. They're already paying for a half hour show on STV2 anyway. Grampian still gets its show and Glasgow could be London Tonight-style presented by the 6pm presenter if required. ITN remains for lunchtime, the News at When and for any red phone breaking news, the STV News at Six squares the "England and Wales story" circle of a more domestic early evening bulletin and Scotland Tonight is there for in-depth analysis.
