[nwtv2003]

If you’ve ever read the book, And Finally - Richard Lindley (2005) the ITV companies when deciding the afternoon schedule wanted the News to go out at midday, so it was essentially out of the way, but ITN wanted it go out at 1:00pm to allow them more time and to get more out of developing stories in parliament and to be similar to how the World at One was set up on Radio 4. Eventually a compromise of 12:40pm was reached and First Report was born. As the programme was a hit, within 2 years ITN got what they wanted and the programme moved to 1:00pm, where it stayed until July 1987.