ITV1 to be rebranded as ITV

How would new, extra regional branding make ITV plc any money?
That's the important question.
If the answer is "none" or "it'll actually cost money", we know there won't be any.

The rebranding will coincide with the launch of the new 6pm news sequence, with its 20 mins of regional news.
How that's going to work will be interesting.
I'd have thought there will be an integrated "ITV Network Newshour" feel to it, with the regional inserts. A 20-minute insert will need radical revamps from the current 30-minute standalone programmes. I doubt any would continue the two-presenter format, for example.
I wonder if the historic names such as "Granada Reports" and "Calendar" will be ditched because they'll be downgraded to an insert of a longer programme?
Just my ponderings. But it does seem to be the logical next step in the way things have moved over the last 15 years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/23/itv-cutting-local-news

Will STV try and keep the 6mins for the lunchtime news?

As ITVplc have all but abandoned their PSB commitments, I don't see how Ofcom can allow them to continue with their licences.

Cutting the regional news even further in January makes a mockery of having a regulator. They should lose their EPG slots and be forced to pay market rates, as they are no more committed to being a PSB than Sky1.

Hunt should hand the gifted PSB Freeview spectrum to his successful 'Channel 6' applicants. Although probably destined to be a commercial disaster, at least they'll be in receipt of the perks ITV reap without any of the commitment.

Where is it confirmed regional news will be cut?

its not yet, but its being proposed, which does not help STV nor UTV.....

I think the clever bit in ITV's proposal is this:

"In Ofcom's report published on Wednesday, ITV is also proposing increasing the number of regional news programmes it broadcasts in England, Wales, the Scottish Borders and Channel Islands from nine back to the 17 it offered before 2009."

So the 20-minute programme would be separate for Border and Tyne Tees, there'd be two Centrals again etc.

So in a way, it's not a cut. It's expansion.

According to the Guardian, Ofcom has aleady said:
Ofcom's report said the plan has "the potential to deliver more localised and news-driven content, potentially addressing viewer needs within the scope of existing costs".

It seems to me that Ofcom is moving towards supporting it, if this is right.
Not sure when it will give the green light, but I suspect this is the real reason behind the delay of the ITV rebrand from the autumn to the new year.

The weird bit is this:

"An ITV spokesman said in a similar vein to the news programme the time cut back on local bulletins would be filled with more of a pan-regional news update."

Whatever "pan-regional" means. Not sure how that would work.

But this 10 minutes might mean that the structure of the programme is deliberately designed to allow STV and UTV to continue to give their viewers their full 30 minutes.

I've been wondering about this, ever since ITV plc first did the off-air pilots for an integrated newshour, many months ago. It would seem odd for a mere "insert" within another programme to have a totally different title from the parent programme. I imagine that the regional inserts will be branded in either of the following ways:

[itv] NEWS
Granada

or

[itv] NEWS
North West

I can well believe that the latter will happen, as the forthcoming news changes are the obvious opportunity for ITV plc to finally rid itself of the last remaining remnants of the old regional names one and for all.

Will the current situation of bulletins in many regions varying between being either pan-regional or sub-regional continue? Or will it all go entirely one way way or the other from the revamp onwards?

If (a) the current mixed situation remains, AND (b) purely geographic suffixes are used, rather than the old regional company names... Could we then end up with a mixture of different suffixes used in a "single" region (e.g. SUB-regional Meridian bulletins branded as either "ITV News South" or "ITV News South East" respectively, whilst PAN-regional bulletins are branded as "ITV News South & South East"). I hope to goodness that a far less messy solution than that is used, but nothing would surprise me...

It happened for most regions on Sixty Minutes, the BBC's ill-fated replacement for Nationwide, in 1983-4. So the regional bit was still "Look North West" with Sixty Minutes. A total mess.
If there is an ITV Newshour, they'd be keen to have as few comparisons with Sixty Minutes as possible.

With Granada moving to Salford, the time looks ripe to ditch the old name.

If we do get a 20-minute "more local" bulletin, with Border and Tyne Tees, for example, having separate programmes again, there probably won't be large cuts there because they'll be doing two different programmes. Same situation in West/Westcountry, Central, Meridian, Anglia etc.

The regional news cuts would happen in the regions that weren't badly affected last time - the ones that will produce just one 20-minute bulletin instead of one 30-minute bulletin. So that's Granada, Wales and London.

It might not be the worst thing to drop the historic Regional names, though it doesn't need to mean the end for Regional News. In an integrated Regional News service, the newsreader would just mention the Region (or sub-Region) at the start of the bulletin. It could be the start of a new era, with the right support (such as Contract Rights Renewal amended to help ITV plc). The current set up is stale, a 20 minute sub-regional News (plus the other scheduled bulletins) in the Evening could be a true alternative to the BBC's services. I'd personally scrap the other 10 minutes from the Evening programme, maybe with ITV plc paying STV/UTV a small annual 'penalty' fee for the 10 minutes lost from their Regional News services (or STV/UTV adding the 10 minutes to their late bulletin?). I'd still like Ofcom to insist on ITV plc adding a 30 minute Non-News Regional 'Life' programme for the English Regions, covering Politics, Current Affairs and some lighter stories. That would be it for me when it comes to continuing a hint of ITV's regionality...

I doubt STV or UTV agreeing to cutting the 6pm news by 10mins and taking useless stuff from ITV. what could happen is both ending up providing Scottish or NI Six, with news reports coming from ITN
.

That could be one of several options on the table (though surely Wales should get it's own 'National' News too?). The favourite I'd guess is that the ITV Plc Regions will have 20 minutes of sub-Regional News and 10 minutes of Pan-Regional News (for example Central West and Central East) before all Regions rejoin the Network for the National News. Though I'm not a fan of this approach, who wants to know about Central East when I'm watching the Central West News? Hence why I'd rather they scrap the other 10 minutes, it could be a fresh approach to the Regional News. A true alternative to the BBC's (also stale) Regional News service.

The other option is adding 10 minutes onto one of the other bulletins I guess...