What do we know about the new ITV news early evening programme?

11 days to go until the big ITV schedule change and there are still mysteries to ponder. ITV still has not told us much about the format of the new hour-long news programme. But have the advance TV schedules on the website DigiGuide given us a clue?

It appears the weekly magazine show in Northern Ireland – UTV Life – will be shown at 7pm on Fridays. If this is the case, it suggests the hour-long programme will split neatly into two.

The first half hour would be a news bulletin similar to the current one. The second might contain longer items, interviews, feature pieces and so on. Otherwise it would simply hot be possible for a region to realistically drop part of the programme routinely. We await confirmation that this is indeed the correct, finalised schedule.

But while this may be the normal format of the programme will it always be so rigid? For instance, tonight would the first half hour focus on the invasion of Ukraine with the rest of the news after 7pm? Or would you do a full, self-contained bulletin in the first half hour then return to Ukraine at 7pm?

If part of the programme isn’t being shown across the network then that would imply it would have to follow the latter regardless.

Meanwhile ITV’s promotions and marketing teams will be doing their best to make sure there isn’t a viewer in the country unaware of the changes to the news and soap schedule.

It means the BBC will have to shout very loudly if the relatively minor changes to EastEnders’ scheduling are to get a look in.

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