UK News 22-09-2000 ITV Announces Return of News at Ten who: ITV what: To bring back News at Ten when: January snippet: "ITV is to bring back News at Ten as part of a last-minute settlement to its legal wrangle with television regulators," reports The Guardian`s media correspondent Matt Wells, "throwing the BBC`s plans to move the Nine O`Clock News to 10pm into disarray." The Mirror is claiming a "stunning victory" for its campaign to bring back the "bong". Along with MPs, the public and most notably the ITC, the paper has complained about the scheduling of the ITN news since the traditional half-hour bulletin was moved to 11pm 18 months ago, resulting in a loss of two million viewers. "The compromise with the Independent Television Commission will see a 20-minute news at ten returning on three nights a week from January," explains The Times. But the BBC, which is due to move its nightly news to 10pm in about twelve months, dismissed the ITV compromise. "There`s hardly a channel in the world that doesn`t have its main evening news at a fixed time, five days a week," said a statement yesterday. "This will confuse viewers." "This is a very unhappy episode," agreed Gerald Kaufman, chairman of the Commons culture select committee. "News at Ten used to be on five nights a week for 30 minutes. Now it will be on for 20 minutes some nights of the week. The viewers are going to lose out in this. It`s a total mess." [... more]

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