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| News · Satire · Spoof · Parody · Humour · Tony Blair |
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| You just spat on: Home > News | 30th July |
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ITV News in further revamp2 Mar 2004 by Matt Knight
British television news plummeted to new depths of gloom and farce today as ITV announced further changes to its new dramatic news format.
Having constructed a spanking new studio set, with a wall of virtual television screens and a white circular walkway, producers have decided to "funk" (sic) up the presenters as well. The Lunchtime News will remain largely unaffected but will see Nicholas Owen don a lion tamer's outfit and crack a whip at the start of every news item. Owen – a keen disco dancer in his spare time - has requested that he be allowed to moonwalk from one screen to another "to slicken things up". The centrepiece, however, will be a groundbreaking presentation of the Early Evening News by presenters Mark Austin and Mary Nightingale who will utilise the massive set more effectively. More performance than presentation, Austin and Nightingale will present the bulletin wearing ice skates. The opening shots will show them skating around furiously, performing a variety of jumps and moves (triple Axels, death spirals, camels, etc) in time with the orchestral score and the bongs (à la Torvill and Dean). Both Austin and Nightingale will glide gracefully around the set relaying the day's news to rapt viewers. At the end of each bulletin, the floor manager and cameramen will throw bunches of flowers towards them. The late evening bulletin will see perhaps the most curious revamp of them all. Veteran newscaster Sir Trevor McDonald will present the news from a high-backed leatherette swivel chair, stroking the bushy tail of a grey squirrel. McDonald will also wear an all-green baize suit, shirt and tie combo so that when he stands in front of the virtual television screen all but his head and hands will disappear. In a final surreal, David Lynch-type twist, sports reporter Felicity Barr will appear from nowhere and then disappear into thin air as soon as she finishes her piece to camera. ITV bosses have banned newscasters from using words and phrases such as: unrest, disturbance, double murder, difficulty, small error, chilly and slippery and instead must use the words: anarchy, riot, massacre, crisis, disaster, arctic and treacherous. Today, ITV dismissed criticisms that their bulletins are: "a pointless use of available technology" and are generally "cliché-ridden, hyperbolic, misrepresentational nonsense, designed to disturb and shock the viewing public" as a huge overreaction, utter claptrap and very depressing.
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