C5 News Move Set To Test Regulatory Powers Again

Debate over the News At Ten move continues to fill pages of the media trade press almost two years after ITV first vacated the 10pm slot. Now another row over the timing of the news is set to begin. Channel 5 is hoping to change its 6pm bulletin to 5.30pm when it begins screening Home and Away later this year, a decision set to further challenge the powers of the ITC.

The issue was raised during MediaTel’s Media Question Time event on Monday evening when the panel was asked their views on the ongoing News At Ten issue. All of the panel members disagreed with the ITC’s decision to force ITV to return its news to the 10pm slot it had vacated in 1999 (see Media Panel Denounces ITC’s Handling Of The News At Ten Affair).

John Billett of the Billett Consultancy said that the interesting test for the ITC would be whether it will allow Channel 5 to schedule Home and Away from July at 6pm, the time of the main news bulletin on the channel. “If C5 news is allowed to move to 5.30pm you will probably get more people watching it as there will be no competition with any others news. It will be interesting to see what busybody regulators will say is in the best commercial interests of C5,” he said.

Jim Hytner, director of marketing and communications at Channel 5, confirmed that C5 has been in discussions with the ITC about moving the news but said that a decision has yet to be made. “The C5 remit states that we have to show our main news bulletin in peak time which is defined, according to the ITC, as 6pm onwards,” he said. “We are arguing that while this may be peak for Londoners, for the rest of the country peak time starts earlier. We know that we will get a bigger audience at 5.30pm than at 6pm, but its tough to talk to the ITC about as the regulation is the regulation. However, we hope very soon to get a positive result about it.”