ITV News
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
ITV News is the name of the news broadcasts on British TV network ITV. It has one of the largest television audiences for news in the UK. It is produced by Independent Television News (ITN), and was more commonly known simply as ITN until 1999. ITV News has a 50-year history of television reporting, from the 1969 Apollo moon landing right up to the recent Gulf war. It has won many awards including "RTS News Programme of the Year" for the Evening News.
Contents |
[edit] History
ITN first broadcast at the start of ITV in 1955. For the first few years the news was read by Christopher Chataway, and into the early sixties Sir Alastair Burnet emerged an aspiring news anchor, when in 1967 he was made anchor of the prestigious News at Ten bulletin.
ITV News programming was branded under the ITN name until 1999, when it became ITV News on programme titles. In 2001, the ITN name was removed from the voiceovers at the start of bulletins and reporter name-checks. The name is now only seen on the end production slide.
In 1999, under the leadership of Granada TV Chairman Charles Allen, the channel controversially decided to axe the flagship News at Ten.[1] The programme was replaced by the 2230 News, but audience figures were decimated. "News at Ten" had once gained audiences of 10 million or more, its replacement now struggles to reach 2 million viewers on any one night (though the Flagship Evening News at 1830 now gets audiences of around 6 million). In 2007 the new ITV Chairman Michael Grade was reportedly telling people that axing News at Ten "was the worst mistake ITV ever made".[2] ITV abandoned its 24-hour news channel towards the end of 2005, saying it was not commercially viable.News at Ten will return to ITV in January 2008 and the 2230 News will be axed and will not be returning.
Since 2004, ITV plc's 40% stake in ITN has been held as part of (and the company's ITV News operations integrated into) the ITV News Group. The Group also comprises the ITV regions in England and Wales and ITV Sport. Its director is Mark Sharman, the man who brought cricket to Channel 4 while head of sport at that broadcaster. Sharman is also responsible for ITV Sport.
[edit] Awards
ITV News news has won many key industry awards for its news coverage in the past fifty years. The team picked up the RTS award and Broadcast award for their coverage of the Beslan school siege and Alastair Stewart won the RTS Presenter of the Year award in 2006.
Legendary editor Geoffrey Cox was the recipient of ITN's very first award - a BAFTA in 1962. Since then BAFTA has gone on to present ITN with a total of 26 awards, for coverage on ITV ranging from Francis Chichester's home-coming in 1967 to the Northern Ireland troubles, the Iranian Embassy siege, wars in the Falklands, Lebanon and the Gulf, the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, the discovery of the Serb camps, the genocide in Rwanda, the storming of the Moscow White House, and the conflict in former Yugoslavia.
There have been over 70 Royal Television Society awards for both domestic and international coverage, with the first coming for the 1969 Apollo moon landing. Home based issues including the miners' strike, the Iranian embassy siege, the Tottenham riots, the Kings Cross fire, the death of Labour leader John Smith and coverage of Dunblane have all been voted the best journalism of their year by the RTS. RTS awards for foreign coverage range from conflicts in Vietnam, Eritrea, Poland, El Salvador, Beirut, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Africa, Russia, Chechnya, Bosnia, Israel and Albania as well as humanitarian disasters including Romania, the Mozambique floods and the Asian tsunami.
From the United States there has been recognition of ITN's journalism, from the prestigious Emmy awards, the New York Television Programming Festival and the White House News Photographers' Association. ITN was the first non-US news broadcaster to win a News and Documentary Emmy when it was awarded top prize for outstanding investigative journalism for its 1992 discovery of the Serb camps. The now legendary footage of emaciated men behind barbed wire went round the world and helped change the course of the conflict in Bosnia. Coverage on News at Ten of the Mozambique floods in 2000 also won an Emmy award.
In addition to BAFTA, Emmy and RTS awards there are also Monte Carlo Gold Nymphs, prizes from the News Festival of Angers in France, the Television and Radio Industries Club, the Ethnic Multicultural Media Awards and the Broadcasting Press Guild as well as many others.[3]
[edit] Branding
Originally ITN used its own name and branding - the original ITN logo, featuring the letters "I" and "N" with an oversized "T" in the centre of a circle, was replaced by a new design with the advent of colour in 1969. The original ITN theme tune was Non-Stop, a piece of light music by Malcolm John Batt, used from 1955-1982. By its end it was only used on generic bulletins, with each of the regular bulletins having its own look and feel.
Today ITV News' trademarks are the inclusion of the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament in its programme titles, along with the chimes of Big Ben (known popularly as the "bongs") between headlines. These however were originally used only for News at Ten, with most ITN bulletins using different studios and individual graphic sets. In 1995 ITN adopted a unified look for all ITV bulletins (except News at Ten), extending the use of the Big Ben clockface to all ITV News bulletins, which also began to use a re-arranged version of the News at Ten theme tune, The Awakening (by Johnny Pearson).
In March 1999, the "ITV News" brand was introduced, and along with it, the "bongs" were extended to all ITV bulletins. The ITN name was dropped from the start of bulletins, and from reporter name-checks, in 2001. "The Awakening" was re-arranged again in February 2004 as part of a major revamp of ITV News, with modifications in January 2006 in conjunction with updates to other aspects of ITV News branding due to the introduction of the new ITV logo and branding, which is the version currently used.
In 2007 The Guardian reported that ITV plans to take its news output "back to basics" by paring back graphics and having presenters adopt a more formal style.[4]
[edit] Controversy
In April 2007 ITN announced that ITV had awarded it a 6-year contract to produce ITV News, at a cost of £250 million.[5] However, ITN announced that the new budget meant it would have to cut staff despite already operating on a smaller budget that its two main rivals BBC News and Sky News.[6]
ITV’s news budget is dwarfed by that of the publicly-funded BBC, which spends £89.5 million annually on newsgathering, plus a further £23.1 million on its rolling news channel News 24.[7]
[edit] News Programmes
ITV News has one of the largest television audiences for news in the UK, with its viewing figures for all of its main programmes counted in the millions. BBC News is the only other news provider that has Higher audience figures. Other broadcasters such as Sky News, Channel 4 News and Five News count their audiences in hundreds of thousands.
- ITV Morning News is broadcast seven days a week from 5.30 until 6.00. Its main presenters are usually newsreaders from ITV London.
- ITV Lunchtime News is broadcast between 1.30 and 1.55 weekdays. It was originally a 30-minute broadcast, but was extended to an hour in 2005. It has now gone back to half an hour, and is broadcast an hour later. Its main anchors are Katie Derham and Alastair Stewart.
- ITV Evening News (RTS News Programme of the Year) is the flagship news programme on ITV. It is mainly co-presented by ITV News' head anchor Mark Austin and deputy head anchor Mary Nightingale. It is broadcast 6.30-7.00 weekdays.
- ITV News at 10.30 is the last bulletin of the day. It is mainly anchored by Mark Austin. It goes out weekdays 10.30-10.55.
- ITV Weekend News is anchored by various staff including Geraint Vincent and Nina Hossain, plus Steve Scott and Lucy Meacock who are regional newsreaders can occasionally be seen presenting.
- An ITV News Summary airs every weekday at 11.10, during This Morning. The bulletin is a couple of minutes long. It has the main headlines, and a look ahead to the Lunchtime News. The summary is fronted by one of the lunchtime newsreaders.
An early-morning News Summary airs every day, anytime between 2.30 and 4.15 and is hosted by the Morning News presenter that day. News Summaries are also broadcast at lunchtimes at the weekend.
On 2 December, 2007, ITV News and the ITV regional newsrooms (except ITV Westcountry), switched from the traditional 4:3 format to 16:9 widescreen.[8]
[edit] Uploaded
Uploaded is an ITV News feature which launched on Tuesday 31 July, 2007. The service, available on itv.com features viewer's contributions to daily debates.
Candid pieces of comment and opinion from 'citizen correspondents' will then be used across ITV News programmes in short clips edited to entice people to visit the website and to complement its TV reporting work.
[edit] NewsFix
During Summer 2007, ITN and ITV Mobile teamed up to launch NewsFix, short news updates sent directly to mobile phones. NewsFix bulletins are send twice per day. The service previously charged users £2, but has been free since October 2007. Users can unsubscribe at any time.[9]
[edit] Head anchors
From 1967 until 1991 the head anchor at ITV News was Sir Alastair Burnet. He was replaced by Sir Trevor McDonald in 1991, who remained head anchor until December 2005, when Mark Austin took over the role of head anchor at ITV News. As of January 2008 Sir Trevor McDonald will once again take over as head anchor at ITV News as he comes out of retirement after two years.
[edit] References
- ^ "ITN and Finally", TV World. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
- ^ "ITN to cut staff as part of £250m ITV news deal", Dan Sabbagh, The Times, 7 April, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
- ^ "ITN Awards", ITN, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
- ^ "ITV news to ditch the gimmicks", The Guardian. Retrieved on 2007-08-13.
- ^ "ITV and ITN sign new six-year contract for ITV news worth over 250 mln stg", ABC Money, 2 April, 2007. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
- ^ "ITN to cut staff as part of £250m ITV news deal", Dan Sabbagh, The Times, 3 April, 2007. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
- ^ "ITN to cut staff as part of £250m ITV news deal", Dan Sabbagh, The Times, 3 April, 2007. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
- ^ "ITV News goes widescreen in December", James Welsh, Digital Spy, 2 November, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-11-02.
- ^ "NewsFix", itv.com, 29 May, 2007. Retrieved on 2006-06-05.
[edit] External links
ITV | |
|---|---|
| Companies | ITV plc · SMG plc · UTV Media plc · Channel Television Ltd · GMTV Ltd |
| ITV Franchises | Northern Scotland: Grampian · Central Scotland: Scottish · Scottish/English Border and Isle of Man: Border · Northern Ireland: UTV · North East England: Tyne Tees · Yorkshire/Lincolnshire: Yorkshire · North and North West England (Weekdays): Granada · North, Midlands, and North West England (Weekends): ABC · Wales and the West of England: TWW, WWN, ITSWW, HTV · Midlands: ATV, Central · East Anglia: Anglia · London (Weekdays): Rediffusion, Thames, Carlton · London (Weekends): ATV, LWT · South and South East England: Southern, TVS, Meridian · South West England: Westward, TSW, Westcountry · Channel Islands: Channel |
| National franchises | Breakfast: TV-am, GMTV/GMTV2 · Teletext: ORACLE, Teletext Ltd. |
| Non-franchise regions | STV · ITV Thames Valley · ITV London |
| Digital channels | ITV2 · ITV3 · ITV4 · CITV Channel · Men & Motors |
| News | ITN · ITV News |
| Brands | Sport: ITV Sport · Children: CITV · Weather: ITV Weather · Mobile: ITV Mobile |
| Online | itv.com · ITV Local · Friends Reunited |
| See Also | ITV television presentation · ITV Digital |
| Independent television regulators | ITA (1955-72) · IBA (1972-91) · ITC (1991-2003) · Ofcom (2003-present) |
| Website: www.itv.com | |
nl:ITV News zh:獨立電視新聞頻道
