Liddiment Regrets News At Ten Move

ITV’s outgoing director of programmes, David Liddiment, has admitted that he should never have reinstated the News At Ten.

Liddiment, who leaves his job at the end of the year (see

Speaking almost two years after the News At Ten was moved back into ITV’s schedules for part of the week (see

He described the move as a “inelegant get out of jail free card” and admitted: “We now have to face the conclusion that it might, after all, have been better to stick with a regular late ITV news at 11pm than move it all over the shop and face the nonsense of the two mainstream channels running news head to head.”

Liddiment, who conceded earlier this year that he may have alienated viewers by taking “too many risks” during his five years at ITV (see

The News At Ten was resurrected early last year following intervention by the ITC (see News At Ten To Return To ITV). The regulatory body was concerned by slumping viewing figures for news programmes on ITV since it scrapped the bulletin in March 1999 (see ITV Axes News At Ten).

Liddiment explained that the decision to move the news was “necessary for commercial reasons”, to enable ITV to continue to square its public service remit with its responsibilities to advertisers.

His comments come just weeks after the Independent Television Commission and The Broadcasting Standards Commission released a study confirming the long-term reduction in audiences for television and radio news, along with a well-logged decline in the use of newspapers (see Regulators Say Communications Bill Must Protect TV News).

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.co.uk

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