TVs' top women fight for current affairs role
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Your support makes all the difference.THE major ITV regional companies will bid this week for a new pounds 10m current affairs series which is expected to be the flagship of serious news coverage on the network.
Six bidders will line up to pitch for the prime-time, hour-long weekly current affairs contract, said to be worth pounds 10m a year to the victor. Although bidders have been warned not to compete to sign deals with star presenters in order to keep costs down, several key names in television current affairs are said to be involved in the bids, including Kirsty Wark, Trevor MacDonald and Sue Lawley.
The new series has been tentatively mooted to air at 10pm if and when News at Ten is split into two half-hour bulletins at 6.30pm and 11pm. ITV has given no official notification of the programme's scheduling, but bidders say they have been nudged towards "that kind of slot".
Whichever tender emerges on top, News at Ten producer ITN will work with the winner, lending editorial support, news footage and resources to the series. That is where the common ground ends.
The leading contenders are Granada Television and Carlton Television. Granada is rumoured to be banking on Desert Island Discs presenter, Sue Lawley to provide the necessary gravitas. The Granada bid is believed to focus around the long running World in Action, which has been at the centre of rumours about its future following the abrupt departure of its editor.
Also part of the Granada Media Group, Yorkshire Television last week confirmed that it had signed a long-term agreement to bring arguably ITV's most famous investigative reporter, Roger Cook, out of retirement. The deal guarantees at least two separate hour-long specials from Cook early next year.
Granada's main rival, Carlton Television, has mooted the "dream team" of Channel 5's headline-grabbing news anchor Kirsty Young and News at Ten mainstay Trevor MacDonald in an attempt to hold on to the traditional audience, but also pull in some younger viewers. Carlton's bid is named 24:7.
Sources within ITV consider Carlton's bid unlikely to triumph this week, despite a strong team. ITV has three major factual series to commission this year: the ITV Debate show, a consumer holiday series and this current affairs flagship. Carlton is currently lined up to produce the first two - three might look like favouritism.
A favoured outsider is Scottish Television, which has teamed up with a Glasgow-based independent production company, Wark Clements. The bidders declined to comment on whether the independent's co-founder and Newsnight anchor Kirsty Wark features in their proposal, but Wark has been spotted in and around ITV's headquarters of late.
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