Who will win the news war?
Stephen Armstrong
Monday January 14, 2008
The Guardian

Tonight Sir Trevor McDonald storms out of retirement to bring back News at Ten on ITV, promising to "take the fight" to the BBC's Ten O'Clock News, much as Muhammad Ali predicted Larry Holmes would be "mine in nine" ahead of his 1980 comeback.

Both programmes offer Minority Report-style hi-tech graphics, giant video walls, glass-festooned studios, and weighty presenters. Sir Trevor is joined by Julie Etchingham from Sky News, while the Beeb offers Huw Edwards and Fiona Bruce. The latter pair would clearly win in a real scrap, but otherwise there's little to choose between them.

News at Ten has only been away since 2004, so brand recognition is still strong. ITV is also promising to schedule one-hour dramas before the news (except on Fridays), to avoid frustrating movie bisection. The commercial broadcaster generally wins the 9pm ratings war, so should inherit a larger crowd.

Conversely, when the channels go head to head with World Cup games, royal deaths and global catastrophes, it's Auntie that the nation runs to. And yet last year a Guardian/ICM survey showed 60% of us trusted the BBC less after the phone-in scandals.


Adam Turner, broadcast director at media buying agency PHD, suspects the BBC will win on points - at least initially. "ITV messed up their news brand by moving it around so much, while the BBC still has great news heritage," he argues. "Having said that, we're not far off the time when everyone will have digital TV, offering 24-hour news channels, so this is more of a status battle between the broadcasters than a genuine public service."

Of course, the news audience is traditionally upmarket, demanding and engaged with the world. The Guardian readership, in other words. So really, the question is: which one are you going to watch?

This article is important because it is looking at two very important and well established media insitutions. ITV will be going into competition with BBC news, bbc have always had news at 10 itv introducing news at 10 again, with ITV you have many buyers trying to buy it and low viewer ratings. so it will be important to see which news at 10 audiences will watch.