From classic TV sitcoms to Hollywood blockbusters via music from rock giants such as Oasis, a high-quality DVD is now virtually a standard add-on. A senior newspaper executive is worried that the giveaway is sometimes reaching ludicrous proportions. He has calculated that during one late spring weekend, a total of 20 million discs were given away across Fleet Street And when everyone does it, no one wins. In the post-Nick Robinson era, our fresh, new team will try a few new tricks.Maybe politics can be sexy after all.. The latest ABC figures tell their own story. No wonder the pressure is on to find new ways to hang on to readers, and in recent weeks the drive to add value has reached a new intensity, with free DVDs taking over from CDs as marketing departments' enticement of choice. Apart from his journalistic credentials, one of the things that attracted me to Nick Robinson was his star quality.
Now he'd be the first to admit that he's not exactly a looker, but he is memorable Tom and Daisy have huge star potential. They are well on the way to becoming household names already and if that helps to get political issues noticed, then that's another tick in another box. But it is our job to make the stuff interesting and relevant to our viewers. If the former is a side effect of the latter, then I'm happy.And it helps if those delivering the story have "star potential". It is not our primary role to re-connect politics to the people. I'll encourage them to travel up and down the land viewing politics from the other end of the telescope; testing whether what the politicians say makes sense on the ground, uncovering evidence to challenge the Parliamentary rhetoric and, yes, to applaud success where it exists.In other words I'd like a little bit more reporting from around the country on the consequences of political decisions - how they affect "real" people - and a little less from the green benches. Political correspondents have to be immersed in the Westminster world.
But it shouldn't be house arrest.Tom Bradby, Daisy Sampson and our two other fine correspondents, Libby Wiener and Angus Walker, need to get out more. But work-a-day Westminster coverage, though vitally important, is another matter altogether.Pictures of men and women bellowing at each other from rows of green leather benches; shots of correspondents standing in front of Big Ben trying to make sense of it - not exactly Hollywood, is it? Nonetheless sometimes we have to settle for it. If we short-change our viewers and they desert us, we go out of business. Some stories draw viewers in by their magnitude and by the extraordinary pictures that we can now deliver instantaneously - the tsunami, the Beslan school siege, the Boscastle floods and the bestial bombing of London. When people choose to watch ITV News, we know we have to give them "the works" - strong journalism, big name anchors, high-end production, whizzy graphics - the lot. Our job, through observation, investigation and analysis, is to provide our viewers with truthful, factual information upon which they can make informed decisions.Increasingly, however that is not nearly enough. In a world of multi-channel choice and multi-platform entertainment, broadcast news has a tough battle to make itself heard At ITV News we understand the commercial realities of that.
