ITV Unveils Its Election Plans

Network and regional news teams and current affairs teams will be working together in the Election 97 programming on ITV. ITV’s deputy controller of network factual programmes, Marion Bowman, said: “This is the biggest investment ITV has ever made in election coverage and we are exploiting the strengths of our network partnerships to the utmost.”

ITV was the fastest results service in the 1992 election. Free from the constraints of advertising breaks, the network hopes to maintain this record.

The election night programme is being produced by ITN. Jonathan Dimbleby will be anchoring the show and says that he looks forward to competing with his brother David, who is hosting the BBC polling day coverage. Although he does feel sorry for his mother, who will be switching between the channels! Jonathan Dimbleby will also be conducting weekly in-depth interviews with the party leaders during the campaign.

Sue Lawley will be presenting ITV 500 — The People’s Election this, and its parallel in Scotland The Scottish 500, is a series of five networked audience participation programmes from marginal constituencies around the country. The audiences for these shows will be made up of voters selected by MORI and will be able to cross-examine senior politicians. Lawley will be in the studio on election night seeking reaction from representatives of ITV 500. This will be the first time that members of the public will participate in live studio coverage of an election.

ITN’s political editor Michael Brunson and Alastair Stewart will be making sense of the results with state of the art graphics and virtual reality. In keeping with the shows’ state of the art image, the ITN helicopter will be used to gather campaign reports. And, for the first time, an ITN Internet web site will provide ongoing coverage of the election between television transmissions; this service launches on 1 April and will be found at: http://www.itnelection.co.uk

ITV: 0171 843 8217