News At Ten returned. With no commercial break. Deliberate? Permanent? Odd feeling in what was otherwise a very familiar programme package (well, I did work on it years ago). But down to business. You want an old-fashioned critique of an old-fashioned show? Start with the Bongs (the headlines). Hasnat Khan exclusive/Diana Georgina Edmonds murder Antarctic special report […]
News At Ten
The old wisdom would have been that the coming News At Ten battle is between two types of television news. One side, the Beeb, driven by the need to inform. At its best patrician and provocative. At its worst dull. The other side, ITN, driven by the need to tell stories, at its best emotionally […]
I had a chance to look over the memo from ITN’s Dave Mannion on the return of News At Ten. Without repeating it in full, it offers important insights into the thinking of one of Britain’s best television journalists. We have been given a prime time slot. Our job is not simply to split the audience, but […]
In 2007, Mark Thompson Peter Horrocks apparently walked into a meeting of top BBC talent and declared — not untruthfully — “There is no market for newsreaders.” Unfortunately “even a dead cat bounces” (as finance types say) and the market promptly leapt back into action and Natasha Kaplinsky and Dermot Murnaghan both left the BBC for Sky. […]