ITV News

ITV News is the news service of British TV channel ITV1. It is produced by Independent Television News (ITN), and is more commonly known simply as ITN. ITV News programming was branded under the ITN name until 1999, when it became ITV News on programme titles. In 2001, the ITN name was removed from the voiceovers at the start of bulletins and reporter name-checks. The name is now only seen on the end production slide.

Contents

1 News Programmes
2 History
3 Branding
4 Widescreen
5 Head anchors
6 External links

News Programmes

The "Theatre of News", ITV News' £1m set, featuring the ITV newsroom and London in the background

There are four news bulletins on weekdays -

ITV Morning News is broadcast seven days a week from 0530 until 0600. Its main presenters are usually newsreaders from ITV London.
ITV Lunchtime News airs between 1230 and 1330 weekdays. It was originally a 30 minute broadcast, but was extended to an hour in 2005. Its main anchors are Nicholas Owen and Katie Derham.
ITV Evening News is mainly co-presented by ITV News' head anchor Mark Austin and deputy head anchor Mary Nightingale. It is broadcast 1830-1900 weekdays.
ITV Nightly News is the flagship news programme on ITV1. It is mainly anchored by Mark Austin, with sport regularly presented by Jonathan Wills. It goes out weekdays 2230-2300.

ITV News at weekends is anchored by various presenters, although Andrea Catherwood is advertised as being ITV News' main weekend presenter.

History

2006: ITV News opening titles featuring a digital Big Ben clock face

ITN first broadcast at the start of ITV in 1955. For the first few years the news was read by Christopher Chataway, and into the early sixties Sir Alastair Burnet emerged an aspiring news anchor, when in 1967 he was made anchor of the prestigious News at Ten bulletin.

Branding

Originally ITN used its own name and branding - the original ITN logo, featuring the letters "I" and "N" with an oversized "T" in the centre of a circle, was replaced by the current design with the advent of colour in 1969. The original ITN theme tune was Non-Stop, a piece of light music by Malcolm John Batt, used from 1955-1982. By its end it was only used on generic bulletins, with each of the regular bulletins having its own look and feel.

Today ITV News' trademarks are the inclusion of the Clock Tower of the Houses of Parliament in its programme titles, along with the chimes of Big Ben (known popularly as the "bongs") between headlines. These however were originally used only for News at Ten, with most ITN bulletins using different studios and individual graphic sets. In 1995 ITN adopted a unified look for all ITV bulletins (except News at Ten), extending the use of the Big Ben clockface to all ITV news bulletins, which also began to use a re-arranged version of the News at Ten theme tune, The Awakening (by Johnny Pearson).

In March 1999, the "ITV News" brand was introduced, and along with it, the "bongs" were extended to all ITV bulletins. The ITN name was dropped from the start of bulletins, and from reporter name-checks, in 2001. "The Awakening" was re-arranged again in February 2004 as part of a major revamp of ITV News, with modifications in January 2006 in conjunction with updates to other aspects of ITV News branding due to the introduction of the new ITV logo and branding, which is the version currently used.

Widescreen

On analogue television, a 4:3 image is broadcast. However, on digital, instead of just broadcasting this 4:3 image (like what channel 4 news does), ITV crop off the top and bottom of the image and broadcast it in 14:9 (with small black vertical lines at the sides). For a viewer of Freeview, for example, who has their box set on 'centre cutout', this means that the picture is missing 50% of the frame compared to terrestrial analogue television.

Head anchors

From 1967 until 1991 the head anchor at ITV News was Sir Alastair Burnet. He was replaced by Sir Trevor McDonald in 1991, who remained head anchor until December 2005, when Mark Austin took over the role of head anchor at ITV News.

External links

[itv.com - News]
[ITN.co.uk]

ITV
British television | Channels

Regions North Scotland: Grampian Television | Central Scotland: Scottish Television | Scottish/English Border: Border
North and North West England: ABC, Granada | North East England: Tyne Tees | Yorkshire: Yorkshire | Northern Ireland: UTV
Wales and the West of England: TWW, WWN, ITSWW, HTV | Midlands: ATV, ABC, Central | East Anglia: Anglia
London: Rediffusion, ATV, Thames, LWT, Carlton | Southern England: Southern, TVS, Meridian
South West England: Westward, TSW, Westcountry | Channel Islands: Channel Television

Breakfast: TV-am, GMTV | Teletext: ORACLE, Teletext Ltd.
News: ITN, ITV News Sport: ITV Sport

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