[XIII]

Thing is that the BBC have a news channel, so can continue the coverage there. ITV don't and they know that people will turn to Sky or the BBC to find out what's going on when they get home if they're not covering it.

Incidently it's the same on radio, Radio 4 finished their 6 o clock news and went to Just a Minute. 5 Live continued the coverage

I don't think it should be at the expense of regional news and especially considering ITV Evening News is an hour long normally so they could have had the breaking news, done the rest of the stories at 6.30pm then done the regional news at 7pm. I would guess that ITV London sharing a studio would be an issue though since they normally prerecord the last bit.