ITV Plays Down Plans To Axe Nightly News At Ten

ITV is attempting to play down rumours it is to reschedule its nightly News At Ten bulletin, after losing out to the BBC in the battle for viewers.

ITV’s News At Ten currently runs head to head with the BBC’s nightly news bulletin and speculation suggests that despite a brief surge in viewing during the recent conflict in Iraq, viewing figures for the flagship broadcast are steadily declining.

Earlier this week ITV’s controller of news and current affairs, Steve Anderson, reportedly admitted that the broadcaster wants to move the News At Ten from its current slot to a later time of 10.30pm.

However, a spokeswoman for ITV remained tight-lipped, saying: “The present situation is not satisfactory and we are looking at ways to rectify the fact that the two bulletins are going head to head. However, we have no plans to re-schedule the news in the near future.”

Any changes to ITV’s news scheduling would have to be approved by the Independent Television Commission, which is responsible for ensuring ITV meets its public service requirements.

This latest development is part of an ongoing saga, which has led commentators to dub ITV’s nightly news as the “News At When”. The broadcaster first rescheduled its 10pm news bulletin back in 2000 to enable it to show films and feature length dramas without interruption (see News At Ten To Return To ITV). However, the decision proved controversial and the ITC forced ITV to return the news to its original time of 10pm three nights a week (see ITV Must Address News Audience Decline, Says ITC).

While ITV was preoccupied with these scheduling issues, the BBC took the opportunity to move its 9 0’Clock News to the newly vacated 10pm slot, leading to a head to head battle for nightly news audiences (see BBC To Broadcast News At Ten).

ITV’s recent decision to bring it news bulletin forward to 9pm to cover the unfolding events in Iraq provided something of a ratings boost for the channel, with figures from BARB showing that the new earlier slot helped to increase the programme’s share of viewing by around 50% (see Feature: TV News Proves Its Worth In Times Of Crisis).

However, it appears that this increase in audiences has not been sustained and speculation that ITV is planning to move its flagship bulletin, in an attempt to boost its popularity, has been rife.

Earlier this week it was announced that deals that see advertisers agreeing to commit a proportion of their budget to ITV in return for air-time discounts, could be banned by the Competition Commission if the proposed merger of Carlton and Granada is allowed to go ahead (see Competition Commission May Ban ITV Share Deals).

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com

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