Tom Bradby

The Royal Television Society gong last week for ITV newsreader Tom Bradby as TV Presenter of the Year followed ITV's decision last year to pour money into News at Ten - a sign ITV wanted to present a serious challenge once more to the BBC's 10pm bulletin.

So it is unfortunate that Bradby's prize came just two days after ITV had bumped News at Ten down the running order to 10.30, to make way for The Nightly Show, the dire new entertainment offering that will occupy the 10pm slot for the next two months. Thanks to the switch, on the first night of broadcast the newly-christened News at 10.30 lost 400,000 viewers.

Newspapers were swift to lambast its useless usurper. "The Nightly Show... look like a resounding flop," the Daily Mail harrumphed. "By airing such trivia at 10pm, ITV has abandoned the prime news slot to the BBC - thus tightening the oh-so-liberal corporation's stranglehold on the nation's news agenda. This is bad for journalism, bad for media plurality - and ultimately bad for democracy. ITV should be ashamed."

It's also bad for ITN, of course, which produces News at Ten and happens to be 20 percent owned by the Daily Mail & General Trust - an interest the Mail's editorial absent-mindedly omitted to declare.

Private Eye, 8th March 2017