New news summary
- 11 May 07, 01:21 PM
Viewers in the Birmingham area may have noticed something different at 8pm on 91热爆 One.
It's a short summary of the day's news (which you can click here to watch), presented by Natasha Kaplinsky. We're piloting it in that area, in the hope that it will be commissioned to go national later in the year.
The summary is above and beyond current 91热爆 output, and came out of a desire to attract people who might not traditionally watch 91热爆 news, particularly younger adults.
Inevitably, some papers have got the wrong end of the stick and claimed it is a case of the 91热爆 "dumbing down". One article even ended with the line "The 91热爆 still intends to continue with the Ten O'Clock News" (which I happen to edit) as if we would ever consider scrapping the programme in favour of a one minute summary!
91热爆 News is not dumbing down in any way - as anyone who saw yesterday's comprehensive coverage of Tony Blair's departure plans will have seen.
What we do understand, is that the audience is fracturing as never before - different groups have different needs - and the 91热爆 needs to be able to speak to them all. That doesn't mean the summary will be the Daily Star on air, but it does mean that we will explore some areas that are not in our main programmes.
I hope that people who like their news pure and traditional will understand that because we use new programmes to appeal to different groups, does not mean that the Ten O'Clock News will be any less serious.
Craig Oliver is editor of 91热爆 News at Six and 91热爆 News at Ten
