Do any of us actually care about the supposed battle of the news playing out at 10pm every night? I can’t say it’s really occurred to me all that much – I’ll flick the telly on and watch one or the other. The concept of brand or loyalty when it comes to the premier broadcasters’ main news bulletins is something I find a bit odd.
Okay, so ITV’s News at Ten has the bongs of Big Ben. Yes, and? Likewise, the BBC news has national treasure Hugh Edwards. And your point is?
Yet, our beloved navel-gazing media seems obsessed with the state of out broadcasters’ news services, the BBC/ITV 10 O’Clock face off in particular getting a great deal of attention. I do think the return of News at Ten to ITV is quite a sensible business decision in terms of ratings. However, there does appear to be a bizarre love-in at ITV with the concept of a News at Ten hosted by Sir Trevor McDonald with all the bongs present and correct. This in itself undersells the programme’s return merely as an exercise in nostalgia – heck, let’s bring back Sandy Gall and Sir Alastair Burnet while we’re at it!
By placing so much emphasis on the return of News at Ten, ITV does appear to have shot itself in the foot somewhat. It must be galling that the revived programme lost the first two nights of the battle by a clear margin of 1 million – 3.8 million tuning in for News at Ten on the first head-to-head compared to the 4.9 million giving the nod to Auntie.
This in itself isn’t bad – this figure was up 1.5 million on the average for the news in its previous 10.30pm time slot. But by last night, the situation had deteriorated, with the BBC pulling in 4.7 million to ITV’s 2.6 million.
In the grand scheme of things, does this matter? Not really. I’d hazard that the ratings fortunes for both news bulletins are influenced by the lead in from the preceding show. With an FA Cup tie on the Beeb compared to tanking Amanda Redman drama Honest on ITV, it’s no wonder Sir Trev lost out.
But ITV has been talking the big talk about the revival of News at Ten for months, and any hint of under performance is just going to get pounced on. Certainly the company’s share price could do without any further hammering.
The situation won’t have been helped today by this story. It details how News at Ten handed a scoop on Prime Minister Gordon Brown, referring to Peter Hain having performed “an incompetence”, to its rivals and then not running the story themselves. I hear the Newsnight team were very happy.
Commentary on news and current affairs rarely falls under the remit of TV Today’s outlook, but the battle of the 10pm news bulletins is so bound up with the current landscape of our premier terrestrial channels, we simply couldn’t ignore it this time. The big question is, will the bongs bomb?
The jury is out…
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