ITV's Tonight - fewer episodes

I'm wondering if there is a case for making 'Exposure' the place for ITV's more 'hard stories' current affairs programming (adding more programmes throughout the year, dropping 'On Assignment' to focus on one 'hard stories' programming brand) with a replacement for 'Tonight' taking the lighter (but as stated by previous posters still important) current affairs stories? With an extended run (say 40 a year) 'The Agenda' (which I'd like to see extended to at least a 40 minute programme), maybe this could make ITV's current affairs a better set of programming.

'Tonight' is a bit of a mess at the moment in my opinion, not that the Beeb's 'Panorama' is much better.

Of course 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald', originally used to be serious investigative journalism until Sir Trev practically retired and it was just him in front of a green screen opening and closing the show. Then it became all about 'statistics' on news events. And it never really got better since Martin Bashir and the whole Jackson furore (which was billed as a 'Tonight special' at the time).

Yes, to be honest I thought they would retire the name after Sir Trevor left, 'Tonight' on its own isn't a particularly unique (or long established) brand.

The Agenda this series has been at 40 minute length for each episode, the Milliband/Klass moment seems to have raied the shows profile a bit this week.

It certainly has, though I believe the 30 minute programmes are coming back soon...(sure somebody said that on here at some point) Good to see this decent programme get some publicity instead of the X Factor or something.

The Agenda beats Newsnight most weeks, it really punches above its weight.
Let's not get nostalgic about Tonight in the Trev days - it used to be a horribly tabloidy show in the early noughties, usually only covering a subject because they had a celebrity to front it or frame it around. In comparison it's a much better and newsier programme than it used to be.

As does On Assignment.

I would hardly say the Agenda is any less populist or tabloidy. Alison Pearson and Ms Klass......
Ratings wise it gets about a third of what the HIGNFY repeat gets on BBC ONE in the same slot and a quarter of what Question time gets.
I don't get the comparison to Newsnight at all, it's like comparing Pointless or Family Fortunes to Only Connect.

You should remember that any ratings for 10.35 on ITV include both popular STV and UTV opt outs. Both of which inflate the raw figures.

Why not bring back World In Action?

But by the same token you can't compare 'The Agenda' to 'HIGNFY'? One is a light current affairs programme discussing news events of the day, the other a rehearsed light entertainment panel show recorded the day before - surely?

World in Action wasn't as hard hitting as rose tinted spectacles make out. House of Horrors started out as an edition of World in Action