News at 10.30
You couldn't open a newspaper this week without bumping into of the battle of the Newses at Ten. On the bulletins themselves, ITN and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ battled to outdo each other with a series of exclusives - it was great fun to watch. 
I think most of us who work in TV news welcome the return of News at Ten, mainly because it brings back the frisson of head to head competition which should keep both products on their toes.
On Newsnight, we're especially delighted to welcome back Sir Trevor and co. as we're now the only news programme at 10.30. In truth there hasn't been a huge overlap between our audiences or competition between our programmes - we tend to look to Channel 4 at 7pm for that. But while others have focused on the at 10 we've noticed a small but significant rise in our audience now we have the slot to ourselves.
And there was one totally unexpected windfall. On Tuesday, ITN sent us the press release of their exclusive interview with the prime minister in which he called the work and pensions secretary Peter Hain incompetent. We asked them for the clip and they provided it - so we were baffled when the quote didn't appear on News at Ten.
For that you had to tune in to Newsnight, at 10.30.
Comments
I'm surprised that the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ did not decide to bump off Jill Archer this week.
your last blog was about the daily mail, this one about news at ten.
yeah, great work and all that
your really getting to the heart of the issues
Why did Mystic Crick not predict that for Sir Trevor and why has the very funny graphic been removed from the Fat Politics Blog -it was very clever
I'm slightly puzzled as to why ITV's News moving half an hour earlier is such a big deal. Someone please explain.
I do hate to sound like a party-pooper, but personally I think that there is too much hype about the news and the presenters. For goodness sake, when will people realise that television has a terrible hold on them? The presenters are treated like small gods and are paid far too much. All this talk of a 'battle' between the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and ITN is ridiculous - we are innundated with news all day long in different modes. None of it seems good or raises spirits.
Is the same clip that was then denied to This Week on Thursday? For goodness sake, I understand that this clip may have been a big thing for ITV, but it only has currency for a few days.
"...so we were baffled when the quote didn't appear on News at Ten."
Well isn't that a conspiracy? Were they lent upon? Did they rather that Newsnight dish the dirt on the PM, i.e. do they dirty work for them?
I thought the 'I' in ITN stood for 'independent'?
Yes, totally baffling.
So shall Paxo be having Sir Stuart Rose on the show to interrogate him about him about Marks and Spencer gussets
Great stuff
So the two Newses at Ten are 'products', while Newsnight is a 'programme'? Hmmm...
The delivery of News is like a good meal, to be palatable, it needs all the ingredients to be in the dish.
It needs interest, one needs to be genuinely interested in the news, to do it justice, a vocation rather than a career.
It needs research, to the best of ones knowledge, these are the relevant facts, and where there are gaps further research is done
It needs honesty, the report needs detail, links to the facts, not assumption, not reading between the lines
It can be light, it is OK to have humour, it does not demean the value of the news per se
It needs to be understandable, News is about information, imparting knowledge, to appeal.
It needs Presentation, the days of a Newscaster reading to you no longer exist, modern lives, mean we expect delivery, a hook to get us interested.
Newsnight have the recipe, and being the good chefs they are, get it right most of the time, occasionally they overboil or underbake something, but as they say, the proof is in the eating, and my table is booked for 10.30 every night
"a small but significant rise"
Is that like a big but insignificant fall?? :)
I like the nine o clock news!