BBC VERSUS ITC - WHO DOES THE NEWS BETTER?

THE ONGOING battle over the news between the BBC and ITV has been aggravated again this week by the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) decision on ITV’s Television news claim.
The advertisement for ITV News stated ‘Nobody Does News Better’, claiming ITV had the most popular newscasters, the best coverage and the deepest political insight.
The ASA ruled that ITV were justified in this statement, however the BBC objected saying their news coverage won more plaudits and ITV had made superiority claims that could not be substantiated.
However, the ASA decided that at the time of the advertising campaign ITV had won more television awards than the BBC.
This blow to the BBC comes just days after the BBC’s decision to move their news slot from 9pm to 10pm which will put them in direct competition with ITV when they move their Nightly News back to its original 10pm slot at the beginning of next year.
At the recent National Television Awards ITV scooped ten awards from a possible 14. Combating speculation that the BBC were not dedicated to current affairs but looking towards higher ratings, the BBC announced an investment of £2.5 million in two of their current affairs programmes, the 9pm News and Newsnight.
Director-General Greg Dyke has faced strong opposition from various agencies including advertisers on his decision to ignore government advice and go ahead with moving the news to 10pm. The latest concerns are from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).
Regional heads of the NUJ chapels are meeting to discuss the impact of the BBC’s decision that follows the main national news and the later time of the bulletins. Currently the bulletin length is three minutes and 15 seconds however this is to be changed to six minutes, and the bulletins will follow the main national news at 10pm from October 16.
The NUJ is understood to be looking for increased in staffing levels in certain regions and guarantees that staff will be given greater flexibility on shifts.