ITV News to link-up with social media

ITV is set to incorporate social media into its news bulletins in a bid to interact directly with viewers.

From this evening, ITV news bulletins will feature social networking links, encouraging viewers to ask questions during the early evening news bulletin.  ITV also plans to extend this to its News of Ten programme at a later date.

The move to incorporate social media comes as ITV launches its one-year strand ‘The Cuts: Your Stories’, which will follow a panel of viewers as they deal with the impact of the government’s new budget.

The broadcaster plans to recruit a panel, made up of public service workers including GPs, teachers and refuse collectors, on tonight’s nationwide news bulletin.

ITV said it is also looking for “families of all shapes and sizes” to join the “giant panel”, which will be advertised on tonight’s show.

Deborah Turness, ITV’s news editor, said: “Government cuts will dominate the news agenda for a long time to come, and our panel will show their direct impact on people from all walks of life.”

She added that the TV debates in the build up to the general election encouraged ITV to incorporate social media into its news bulletins.

“The debates brought social media out of the teenage bedroom and into the living room,” Turness said.  “So many people enjoyed the experience of watching TV whilst chatting online it became a mainstream experience.

“We wanted to build on that in our news programmes and use social media as a platform to offer useful information to our viewers whilst harvesting their take on living in ‘austerity Britain’.”

From tonight, viewers will be able to question ITV reporters during the 6.30pm bulletin.  In this evening’s show, viewers will have the opportunity to put questions to the ITV news reporter Phil Reay Smith and financial experts from moneysupermarket.com.