[JMT1985]

So let us look at the complete pigs breakfast mess ITV made with them axing News at Ten in 1999

In March 1999, ITV move their News at Ten to a new 6.30pm slot and call it the Evening News, and then take their 20 minute early evening news digest at 5.40pm, and move that to 11pm and call it the Nightly News - and then the ratings implode (over dramatic yes, but the ratings weren't good)

In January 2001, after months of discussion between ITV and the ITC (including the ITC bribing ITV by offering more advert time in prime time, they came up with "News at Ten Returns" - which was a complete lie - ITV would simply take their ITV Nightly News at 11pm, move it back to 10pm and rename it ITV News at Ten - kept at the Nightly News duration of 20 minutes - regional news was cast adrift to 11.20pm for a few months, before the bright spark at ITV felt it would be better placed at 10.20pm.

And to make matters even worse the new "diet" ITV News at Ten would only air three nights a week, with Friday nights edition kept at 11pm and named ITV Weekend News, and on one night during the week, ITV could move the News at Ten to fit in with movies or sport - leading to the usually funny but stupid ITV News at Ten at 10.45pm. I remember on some occasions in 2002 ITV News at Ten was placed at 11pm which was so stupid, they should have just used the name ITV News genric branding for that slot.

2004 - ITV knew they were in an even bigger mess than in 1999, so move their late news to 10.30pm five nights a week, with ratings already in the toilet for their late news, they just gave up and kept it at 10.30pm.

2008 - one decent thing Michael Grade did do at ITV was to reinstate News at Ten properly and from January 2008 it was back (Fridays was still at 11pm for a short while).

What a complete balls up they had over a period of 8 years

[Ben Shatliff]

So let us look at the complete pigs breakfast mess ITV made with them axing News at Ten in 1999

In March 1999, ITV move their News at Ten to a new 6.30pm slot and call it the Evening News, and then take their 20 minute early evening news digest at 5.40pm, and move that to 11pm and call it the Nightly News - and then the ratings implode (over dramatic yes, but the ratings weren't good)

In January 2001, after months of discussion between ITV and the ITC (including the ITC bribing ITV by offering more advert time in prime time, they came up with "News at Ten Returns" - which was a complete lie - ITV would simply take their ITV Nightly News at 11pm, move it back to 10pm and rename it ITV News at Ten - kept at the Nightly News duration of 20 minutes - regional news was cast adrift to 11.20pm for a few months, before the bright spark at ITV felt it would be better placed at 10.20pm.

And to make matters even worse the new "diet" ITV News at Ten would only air three nights a week, with Friday nights edition kept at 11pm and named ITV Weekend News, and on one night during the week, ITV could move the News at Ten to fit in with movies or sport - leading to the usually funny but stupid ITV News at Ten at 10.45pm. I remember on some occasions in 2002 ITV News at Ten was placed at 11pm which was so stupid, they should have just used the name ITV News genric branding for that slot.

2004 - ITV knew they were in an even bigger mess than in 1999, so move their late news to 10.30pm five nights a week, with ratings already in the toilet for their late news, they just gave up and kept it at 10.30pm.

2008 - one decent thing Michael Grade did do at ITV was to reinstate News at Ten properly and from January 2008 it was back (Fridays was still at 11pm for a short while).

What a complete balls up they had over a period of 8 years

And sadly even to this day; the ratings have never returned.

What wasn’t broken didn’t need fixing.

They should have left News At Ten at 22:00 and moved the Early Evening News to 18:30 in a 30 now 60 minute slot which I think has worked.

[Andrew]

One unknown is whether the BBC would still have moved their News to Ten, and still overtaken them in the ratings.

I can not imagine a time now where all the channels put their biggest stuff on at 9pm but BBC One persisted with putting all their big stuff on at 9:30pm. It was a completely different era.

[lookoutwales]

There is much discussed about how the changes impacted late nights on ITV but much less said about early evenings, partly I guess as the Evening News launching was somewhat successful, though at the cost perhaps of the regional content, especially the regions that had hour long bulletins or additional regional shows in the 6.30pm hour.

On the one hand, you did have a number of regions going head to head with the BBC equivalent in that slightly awkward 6.25pm slot (Central and HTV spring to mind)

On the other, those regions who were persisting with hour-long programmes were always going to struggle in the 5.30pm slot - Granada Tonight was still in its 'This Morning North West' phase while Tyne Tees had tried to do make two shows for the price of one (North East Tonight and Primetime) but gave up after barely a month.

Other areas simply used the 5.30pm for non-news regional shows but I don't think they lasted too long - particularly once schedules began to streamline across the network and regional quotas were cut.

I get the impression that it was around this time the BBC's regional news programmes were starting to establish a firm ratings lead UK-wide over ITV. Certainly, Granada Tonight was falling behind to North West Tonight when Gordon Burns came on board and I think Calendar was overtaken by Look North, helped by the return of Harry Gration.

Sure I read somewhere that Look North was pulling in twice the number of Calendar viewers (this was before LN Hull launched)

[JMT1985]

I remember reading viewers in Northern Ireland were slightly angry at UTV for persisting with a one hour at 5.30pm, starting with UTV Life, followed at 6pm with UTV Live at 6 - this meant they missed out on some networked early evening shows.

One big example was in 2004/05 with The Paul O'Grady Show - for the first series, UTV used to air it on a one day delay at 2pm. For the second series in 2005 they didn't even bother airing it at all, and UTV viewers had to rely on the late night repeat. For Paul's final series for ITV at that time in the autumn of 2005, UTV viewers had no access to the show at all.

[AndyB2008]

On the one hand, you did have a number of regions going head to head with the BBC equivalent in that slightly awkward 6.25pm slot (Central and HTV spring to mind)

On the other, those regions who were persisting with hour-long programmes were always going to struggle in the 5.30pm slot - Granada Tonight was still in its 'This Morning North West' phase while Tyne Tees had tried to do make two shows for the price of one (North East Tonight and Primetime) but gave up after barely a month.

Other areas simply used the 5.30pm for non-news regional shows but I don't think they lasted too long - particularly once schedules began to streamline across the network and regional quotas were cut.

I get the impression that it was around this time the BBC's regional news programmes were starting to establish a firm ratings lead UK-wide over ITV. Certainly, Granada Tonight was falling behind to North West Tonight when Gordon Burns came on board and I think Calendar was overtaken by Look North, helped by the return of Harry Gration.

Sure I read somewhere that Look North was pulling in twice the number of Calendar viewers (this was before LN Hull launched)

Didn't help the Primetime portion of North East Tonight was having to face Neighbours, then still popular (the fanbase were unlikely to ditch the goings on in Erinsborough for Pam Royle). Not to mention North East Tonight had been established in the 6pm slot.

After the axing of Primetime after 4 weeks, North East Tonight was reformatted. Pam did a regional opt out as part of the reformat.

Eventually the lifestyle portion was moved to lunchtime.

[LondonViewer]

One unknown is whether the BBC would still have moved their News to Ten, and still overtaken them in the ratings.

I can not imagine a time now where all the channels put their biggest stuff on at 9pm but BBC One persisted with putting all their big stuff on at 9:30pm. It was a completely different era.

Surely that would have been very difficult, politically, for the BBC to do.
In the ‘and finally’ book there’s a mention that there was an earlier attempt to move the NaT back, but ITN managed to scare off the regional companies by warning the BBC would take the slot and compete at 9pm.
Such a huge mistake to invite such competition in your most important slot.

[ACTV]

I think the lack of any decent programming didn't help ITV's fortunes either. It was almost always 9pm films, 2 hour dramas like Midsomer Murders, generic factual output of the Neighbours from Hell mold, Tonight with Trevor McDonald (commissioned I imagine to soothe critics of the loss of Trevor at Ten as well as replacing World in Action) and repeats of Tarrant on TV.

Perhaps ITV could have succeeded at 10pm had they put more effort into what went there, I seem to remember reading there was an experiment in the autumn of 1998 to skew younger after 10.40pm, led by the American sitcom Veronica's Closet, which came from the producers of Friends and was massive in the US at the time and shown on NBC on Thursdays between the top shows on all of US TV at the time, Seinfeld and ER. It probably would have been more successful here on Channel 4, but it failed to make any impression here, probably due to it's awkward timeslot.

Alongside that there were a few other things, I think there was a topical comedy show called Stuff the Week and another US sitcom (Dharma & Greg?) that made up that slot.

Surely that mix of programmes would have been better than Julian Clary's Mr and Mrs, and actually picked up a younger audience? Although chances things still would have ended up the same way for ITV, and News at Ten would eventually be back.

[nwtv2003]

One unknown is whether the BBC would still have moved their News to Ten, and still overtaken them in the ratings.

I can not imagine a time now where all the channels put their biggest stuff on at 9pm but BBC One persisted with putting all their big stuff on at 9:30pm. It was a completely different era.

I think this has damaged ITV more in the long run. Yes the BBC ran new dramas and comedy at 9:30pm, but it was never a constant thing, quite often, especially in the earlier half of the week the schedule went off on a tangent after that time when you had the likes of Panorama and Sportsnight. Prior to March 1999 the 9pm slot was essentially ITV’s to dominate.

Whereas since 2000 the BBC have put their big guns out at 9:00pm every night of the week, and this has stuck. I could not imagine the BBC reverting back to a 9:00pm news now.

If they had to insist on moving News at Ten, then fine but I believe they did it too quickly. The confirmation of the axe occurred in December 1998, and was in place by March 1999. The first few weeks of the 10-11pm weren’t too badly scheduled as there were enough new series to show long with some movie premieres along with new dramas such as Taggart and Morse but it went downhill too quickly.

[lookoutwales]

Back to the archive - and screen test footage of Barbara Mandell, ITN's first female newscaster, who was lined up to present their midday bulletins (the heavy start-up losses incurred soon put pay to that)

She went onto have stints as a weekend newscaster and reporter, before working behind the scenes on News at 545.

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