News At Ten Debate Looks Set To Continue As BBC Calls For ITC Turnaround
Those who thought that the News at Ten debate would be put to an end when the ITC came to an agreement with ITV in September (see News At Ten To Return To ITV) have been proved very wrong. The BBC’s decision to move its 9pm week night bulletin to the 10pm slot, ahead of ITV’s reinstatement of the bulletin in the new year (see BBC To Broadcast News At Ten) set off a fearsome ratings war, and this week more fuel has been added to the fire with criticisms from the BBC of both ITV and the ITC, and research showing that viewers don’t care about the timing of the BBC bulletin, but want ITV’s news back where it was nearly two years ago.
The BBC’s director of television, Mark Thompson, was the source of the Corporation’s attack on its commercial rival and the TV regulator. Speaking at Sunday night’s Royal Television Society’s dinner, he accused ITV of changing its attitude towards the BBC’s 10pm offering for commercial reasons. “ITV in August were in favour of the BBC’s move of the news because they thought it would help them win their argument with the ITC and the politicians.” he said, “They’re now against it, not because they’re deeply worried about news audiences or the future of public service television, but because in the interim a new deal came along- a rather tasty deal from their point of view.”
Thompson went on to say that the extra advertising time given to ITV was offered by the ITC, “apparently without regard to the wider ecology of commercial TV” and in exchange for few concessions. In the same speech he urged the ITC to “think long and hard” about the issue. “Will an ITV Nightly News which runs some nights head to head with the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News really deliver better cross-channel news audiences than we’ve seen in the past month?” he asked.
Thompson backed his argument with statistics that showed 5.3 million people had watched the 10pm news during the four weeks it had occupied the time slot, compared to the 4.6 million which would have been estimated from previous performances for the month. This is what the viewers are doing, but what do they actually want? New data from CIA MediaLab may not come as welcome new for the BBC director.
CIA’s latest findings, from fieldwork carried out during last week, show that while a majority of people would like ITV to restore the News at Ten, their attitude towards the timing of the BBC evening bulletin is ambivalent.
Of the 500 adults polled, 63% wanted a 10pm bulletin, compared to 23% who liked the 11pm schedule position. The remainder expressed no opinion. When it came to the BBC’s news, 42% thought it should go back to being at 9pm, while 41% preferred the new time and 17% had no opinion. Little demographic variation was identified on the subject, with the exception of the 15-24 year old sample, who were more positive about the current timings.
In addition, it appears that viewers are less worried than TV executives about a clash of scheduling, as 56% of respondents who were happy with the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News still wanted the ITV’s News at Ten to be restored. Head of CIA Medialab, David Fletcher, commented, “The irony is that whilst simulcasting reduces consumer choice it may actually increase total news viewing.”
BBC: 020 8743 8000 CIA MediaLab: 020 7803 2000 ITC: 020 7255 3000 ITV: 020 7843 8222
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