ITV News launching 24/7 on ITVX

[Ash101]

Does online delivery of a channel like this make it more cost effective to run?

Obviously we're living in different times but they decide back then that an ITV News Channel was not good value?

[manilabay]

Does online delivery of a channel like this make it more cost effective to run?

Obviously we're living in different times but they decide back then that an ITV News Channel was not good value?

I work within a cloud tech company, the economics of FAST channels can be quite appealing for a broadcaster to extract greater value from their content. At its core, FAST is just a playlist of recorded content (news broadcasts and commercials) with some basic graphics (if not already embedded) and the ingest of a few pieces of live. In the case of ITV News, I suspect most of this will be re-airing segments from national & regional news perhaps as well as current affairs programming repeats. 

This kind of setup deployed in the cloud would be a low cost solution - would like only require a few people to run at most and very light on dedicated on-prem infrastructure. Any news programming that is dedicated to ITV X would likely utilise existing assets so the only actual cost would be labour. 

For a company that is trying to explore all revenue streams, this is a smart move that goes a small way to restoring something that resembles the former ITV News Channel.

[no1fanofthepals]

Just a question, would different people get different news depending on which region they are in? (e.g. someone watching regional news in Yorkshire can be watching regional news at the same time as someone in London watching national news.) Considering it would mainly be pre-recorded news, could different regions get their news at different times or would it just be regional news at the same time each day?

[Humphrey Hacker]

Just a question, would different people get different news depending on which region they are in? (e.g. someone watching regional news in Yorkshire can be watching regional news at the same time as someone in London watching national news.) Considering it would mainly be pre-recorded news, could different regions get their news at different times or would it just be regional news at the same time each day?

I don’t know whether its still done now but a few years ago at least one edition of Calendar (usually the “east”version) would be recorded and the “west” version be transmitted live or if there wasn’t any live inserts both would be recorded earlier in the day and transmitted “live”.

[Brekkie]

I don't think there has been any plans for regional versions to launch but if they did they'd likely just loop the 6pm bulletin throughout the night and then the shorter bulletins at other points of the day. Really though all they need to do is make them available on demand, but just chucking up a 15 minute bulletin to loop for a few hours after the breakfast and lunchtime bulletins, then looping the evening bulletin through the night would give them something they could pass off as a regional news streaming service if the will and indeed demand. I doubt either is to be fair.

[Dylan2001]

A Personal opinion. I wish ITV Lunchtime News and News at ten did the handover to the nations and regions before BBC News did. “ Mary’s back at 6:30 but now let’s go over to our itv news colleagues around the country for the news where you are this Monday lunchtime so from me Nina Hossain, bye bye”

“ Nina thanks very much I’m Paul Reilly this is utv live”

[XIII]

Personal opinion. I wish ITV Lunchtime News and News at ten did the handover to the nations and regions before BBC News did. “ Mary’s back at 6:30 but now let’s go over to our itv news colleagues around the country for the news where you are this Monday lunchtime so from me Nina Hossain, bye bye”

Wouldn’t make sense in London for the Lunchtime news to do a handover  as it’s the same presenter for both.

[Brekkie]

They did integrate them for a year or two from 2004, and in a way which always felt more seemless than how the BBC did it, but it didn't last too long. Pretty sure they had stopped by the time the teal walking on Big Ben titles came in.

I'm personally not a fan of the regions just handing over to the 6.30 news either but think that has ended since an ad break was added when the hour long bulletin came in, meaning they get a proper close now.

[itsrobert]

The integration of the regional news did last into the teal 2006- era but I'm not sure now when it stopped exactly. But, it was still definitely integrated at the time of the 2006 relaunch.

[JamesWorldNews]

Well, itsrobert is here and already this thread has become classy again! ?

*waves*

[EDCanada]

a playlist of recorded content (news broadcasts and commercials) with some basic graphics (if not already embedded) and the ingest of a few pieces of live. In the case of ITV News, I suspect most of this will be re-airing segments from national & regional news perhaps as well as current affairs programming repeats. 

This kind of setup deployed in the cloud would be a low cost solution - would like only require a few people to run at most and very light on dedicated on-prem infrastructure. Any news programming that is dedicated to ITV X would likely utilise existing assets so the only actual cost would be labour. 

Theoretically, the FAST model of news production could also be extended to regional news (especially at regions where multiple programmes are done by the same production/presenter teams). The individual presenter on-camera reads and voiceovers can be recorded ahead of time or just before broadcast, journalists can file stories up to broadcast time instead of (I'm assuming) 5 PM in some regions like Central East, and each presenter read/voiceover/package is rendered as an individual video clip in a playlist. If there's breaking news, the team can record something quickly and insert it into the playlist. 

There's many broadcasters around the world who are already implementing this type of production workflow, I won't be surprised if ITV does this not only for the new FAST news channel, but for some of the regional news programmes as well.

[Brekkie]

I guess last night is an example of where this would have come into play. You don't do rolling news day in day out but on a night like last night you can basically run for the evening between the two bulletins for a story which is big, but not big enough to interupt ITV itself. They'd no doubt be running this morning too.