News at Ten

The ITV News at Ten is the flagship news programme on British television network ITV, produced by ITN and founded by news editor Geoffrey Cox in 1967. It was originally planned as a thirteen week project in July 1967 because senior figures at ITV refused to believe that a permanent 30-minute evening news programme would be welcomed by viewers. However, the bulletin proved to be very popular with audiences and it remained a fixture of the ITV schedule. News at Ten rose to popularity for the in-depth nature of its news reporting, and the presence of context and analysis, something that had lacked in ITN's shorter news updates. News at Ten also popularised some of the most well-known faces in television news, among them Alastair Burnet, Sandy Gall, Reginald Bosanquet, Anna Ford, Alastair Stewart and Trevor McDonald. When the programme was initially axed by ITV in March 1999 to make way for entertainment programming, there was a public outcry. The bulletin made a short-lived return in 2001, before being replaced with a 22:30 bulletin in 2004. It took a further four years for News at Ten to be properly reinstated to the ITV schedule, in January 2008. The current newscasters are Mark Austin and Julie Etchingham.