ITV News

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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.

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

[edit] News Programmes

The "Theatre of News", ITV News' £1m set.

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 1330 and 1400 weekdays. It was originally a 30 minute broadcast, but was extended to an hour in 2005. It has now gone back to half an hour, and airs an hour later. Its main anchors are Alastair Stewart (from January 2007) and Katie Derham. Current anchor, Nicholas Owen leaves in 2007.
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 News at 10.30 is the flagship news programme on ITV1. It is mainly anchored by Mark Austin. It goes out weekdays 2230-2300.
ITV Weekend News is anchored by various presenters, but it's usually fronted by Steve Scott, Nina Hossain or Lucy Owen.
ITV News Summary airs every weekday at 1110, during This Morning. The bulletin is a couple of minutes long. It has the main headlines, and a look ahead to the Lunchtime News. The summary is fronted by one of the lunchtime newsreaders.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.