Why is the ITV News in 4:3?

Forgive me if this has been answered hundreds of times.

Why is the ITV News in 4:3? The set was made for February 2004 wasn't it, which was long after widescreen came into effect, so why is it still in 4:3?

Isn't it written into the current ITV News contract that the service will switch to widescreen during the period of the contract?

OK, wasn't the Evening News in widescreen today? I don't really know the technicalities of this, but I was watchng UTV, analogue, on a normal TV, and there were two narrow black bars, at the top and bottom of the screen, which I always took to mean 14:9. Am I completely braindead, or what?

Perhaps it's because not all ITV regional newsrooms have been equipped with a 16:9 system? It'd look pathetic to have widescreen switching in the middle of a news programme and or on UKToday / News Network on the NC.

UTV is an exception - they always show the news in widescreen.

It is 4:3 from ITN

NO, definiely NOT, Sir.

UTV are the ONE region who ARC the London feed from 4:3 into 16:9 for digital transmission and into 14:9 for analogue.

They are also the one region who bother to produce their own local news in 16:9.

HTV West and Anglia also used to ARC their 4:3 produced local news up to 16:9 for digital transmission, but since their transmission has been moved to LNN in London, that has been stopped.

Well thank you very much.

Simple because most international footage is still 4:3 I think.

And if you look at the BBC widescreen is a mess. Most of the reports are in 14:9 - even some of those filmed by the BBC themselves - and alot of 4:3 footage is cropped to 14:9, which means on News 24 when the bottom third is filled with graphics, about half the picture is on screen.

I do think the news should be moving into widescreen (I imagine the current ITV News titles are also in widescreen), but I think it be better if they did something similar to Sport and made the programme in widescreen, with any 4:3 reports shown in 4:3, with terrestrial viewers still getting the 4:3 picture (if that makes sense!).

They could always arc the regional programmes to 14:9 as the BBC does with its remaining 4:3 regions.

Because there is very little point in making news in widescreen, and almost all agency footage will be in 4:3. Long may this stay the case - I make a point of avoiding BBC News when they are showing an agency interview because I know they will crop it to 14:9 and show it in a 16:9 frame.

It's refreshing to see such sensibility in play with the modern obsession with widescreen conversion for no particular reason.

Just been watching the 60 Min Makeover and the advert for ITV WALES NEWS came on. It was in widescreen and it didnt make the presenter look squashed. Made it look professional, can wait to see whether the programme itself if WS. Its should be changing soon anyways as they have WS screen in the studio.

Did anyone else notice this?

The trailers for the regions news programmes at 6 are always in widescreen, but the main programme itself is not ( with the exception of UTV )