The battle for ITV News

I've just been reading about the battle between ITN and Channel 3 News over ITV News and was just wondering, what will the implications be of Channel 3 News winning the contract?

I've read that both have to submit details of various things before the end of July, including presenters. So if they win, what will happen to Trevor McDonald, Kirsty Young, and all of the rest of the team? They couldn't all go to Channel 4 and 5, and the ITN Channel, because there's too many of them and they would all see it as demotion.

It's not as if Channel 3 News could recruit them all, as they have to name their presenters as well. Would these consist of Sky News, Bloomberg and UTV presenters? And seeing as ITV want whoever wins to provide news to a 24 hour ITV News channel, what would Sky News think about setting up a rival to themselves?

So, what does everyone think, and who should win it?

I know it will probably all come down to money, but can you really see ITV abandoning presenters such as Trevor McDonald, Kirsty Young, Dermot Murnaghan, Mary Nightingale, John Suchet, Katie Derham for a cast of 'relatively' unknowns.

I'm sure the BBC will try to get Kirsty Young for the One 'O Clock news or something...though where did you hear about ITV wanting the news provider to set up a 24 news channel...isn't there enough already?!?

To be honest I am not actually sure whether it matters that any of the Sky presenters are not as well known as the current crop of ITV ones, despite the fact that most have them have presented on ITV or the BBC at some point or another.
Take TVAM for example, it did not matter when the entire TVAM group simply went off screen, can you imagine us without the GMTV presenters today?
The ITV bid is all about money.
ITV want the cheapest deal possible and ITN are not actually ready to deliver on this, Sky or whatever you want to call the thing, is.
And also consider this... BSkyB have NEVER once lost a bid that they were really serious about.
They lost the C5 and C4 News contracts simply because they didn't put anywhere near as much effort into them as this one.
The presenters on screen would be from Sky News, but remember the style of news would be very different to what you currently see on ITV.
I expect they would nip over to Bloomberg for a market roundup, and vary between the others.
Although only Sky and Bloomberg would be handling the actual correspondent side of things, I doubt you would see many UTV correspondents on ITV News.

In the end it really does come down to money, frankly ITV don't actually care who reads the news, Mary Nightingale was relatively unknown to most, and look at her now.
ITV are looking for the cheapest possible bid, and with Sky being able to offer this and ITN not, then it looks quite bad for ITN.
Also, on the subject of an ITV News Channel, this would probably be quite different to Sky News, perhaps along the lines of a CNN Headline News operation.
Sky would easily be able to compete with themselves, they are so far ahead in the ratings game at the moment that I don't think any brand could really topple them.
The BBC have tried and even with such an established name in news they have failed, as have ITN.
Seems unlikely that an ITV News Channel would really threaten Sky.

ITN to fight off Sky bid for £43m TV news contract
By David Lister Media and Culture Editor
16 June 2001
Rupert Murdoch's Sky television will next week attempt to change the face of news on ITV by wresting the £43m contract from ITN to provide news for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

ITV will put out tenders for the contract, which is up for renewal in 2002. If Sky is successful with its bid, the careers of familiar faces including Sir Trevor McDonald and Katie Derham could be threatened. Sky's newscasters would hope to replace them as the faces of commercial television news.

But the more likely scenario is that Sky will tell ITV it would keep ITN's star newscasters if it wins the contract, to guarantee continuity and viewer approval.

Although ITN has diversified recently, providing a 24-hour news channel, news bulletins for commercial stations and news services to mobile phones, the loss of the ITV contract would be a devastating blow.

Sky's main hope is to undercut the price of the ITN service. To try to win the ITV contract, Sky has joined four other broadcasters: Chrysalis, the television production and radio company has signed up for the fight, as has Bloomberg, the international financial news operation, and CBS, the American television network. Bringing up the rear is Ulster TV.

If ITV awarded the contract to the Sky consortium, then, as one ITV executive put it: 'ITN would implode; it would fail to be a proper company.' Despite efforts to diversify, the ITV news contract is still more than 40 per cent of ITN's turnover.

But ITV's dominant companies Granada and Carlton own 40 per cent of ITN. So they are hardly likely to want to see it implode. For that alone City analysts and television chiefs believe the Sky bid will fail.

ITN remains bullish about winning a renewal of the five-year contract. Sources there said it had beaten off Sky for the Channel 4 contract in 1997 and the Channel 5 contract in 1999, that they had been going since 1955 and Sky had yet to win a contract for a tailored news programme.

Certainly, the belief among users of ITN news is that it will retain the contract. Dawn Airey, chief executive of Channel 5, told the Broadcasting Press Guild Sky would not wrest the contract from ITN.

Ironically, Ms Airey's predecessor at Channel 5, David Elstein, did contemplate switching the channel's news service to Sky when they came in with a bid that was literally half the price of the ITN service. But Mr Elstein was overruled by his board, chaired at the time by Greg Dyke, now director-general of the BBC.


-- Today's Independent

Well it would surprise me if ITV were willing to lose their established names as easy as that, when News at Ten went head to head with the BBC they put a lot of publicity in the fact that Trevor McDonald would be presenting, they saw him as a weapon in the ratings war. It's also interesting to note that it may not be all about money, ITV have also requested names of proposed presenters in the bids. That may become a factor in the overall decision.

It would be nice to see UTV names such as Mike Nesbitt (who already presents for the network on Anglia's Sunday Morning) and Ivan Little on ITV News. Bob Friend of Sky would make an ideal anchor for News at Ten. And Adam Boulton is an excellent chief political corspondent - he seems to work 24 hours a day (especially during the election!!!!).

Who are we kidding though. ITN will of course win the contract back, thanks to the Carlton/Granada influnence. John McCann's solitary vote at ITV Council isn't going to make much of a difference when faced with Charles Allen and Michael Green.

Didn't someone say that ITN loosing the contract would be beneficial somehow to Granada and Carlton?

I don't really think many of Sky News' presenters would be suitable for ITV. Kay Burleigh, for example, is certainly better suited to a rolling news channel, and Martin Stansford is not, I believe, a brilliant newsreader. Don't get me wrong, I like him, but I think that Jeremy Thomson was better suited to the Nine O'Clock News, and that Martin is better suited to presenting programs like Technofile.

Perhaps Jeremy would be good on ITV because he carries with him a lot of authority whilst remaining really friendly. Bob Friend, on the other hand, who's probably really nice, would probably be seen as being a bit of a grumpy old man and not really the image ITV would want to convey.

Lisa Aziz is a possibility, but she'd have to stop slouching and grow a neck. Vivian Creegor could be alright, she seems to have a lot of authority in her presenting style, but they would alost certainly have to emloy new, younger presenters if they wanted any chance of winning the contract.

As long as they get Lisa Burke to do the weather though, they'll be fine!

---
Phil

The fact that ITN are owned party by Granada and Carlton doesn't have as greater effect as you would think.
Remember, they also have interests in UTV, part of the other consort.

And Phil... Both Kay and Lisa have presented the news on ITV before

But yes, you are right.
As I have said Granada and Carlton would not 100% like ITN to win the contract.
A) It puts the idea of ITN being listen on the stock exchange down the pan, as they will simply not do this under such a big contract agreement, too risky.
and B) It would be like Sky News paying Sky One
By this I mean that because GMG and Carlton already own most of ITN this would basically be like paying for something you already have... in the end costing them more.
So you would get ITN paying ITV even though Carlton and GMG already own most of it.
This is basically like Carlton and GMG paying for something they already own... it's just stupid, they would of course get money back because it would go in a big loop, but tax would be taken off it as would all of the ad. revenues and profits ITN make and all of the other things which would actually leave Carlton and GMG worse off than before!

It certainly would be interesting if Channel 3 News won the contract and not ITN.

Although its not likely to happen, it could have a positive effect on ITV's news.

I dare say Channel 3 News would try harder and try to keep the contract if they did win it.

Really, it doesn't make much of a difference who wins. We all know ITN and have got used to them, but for all we know if Channel 3 News won then they could provide a much better news service.

Wasn't that for TV-am ?

Well yes but let's be honest how many housewives know about the ITV Contract system!?