'News at Ten' widens lead

THE LATEST audience figures from the independent Broadcasters' Audience Research Board show the lead established by ITN's News at Ten over the BBC's Nine O'Clock News at its widest for more than 10 years.

More than 6.7 million people on average watched News at Ten each night between January and June of this year, 2 per cent more than in the same period in 1993, and 890,000 more than watched the Nine O'Clock News, where the number of viewers fell by 3 per cent to 5.8 million.

This was despite a widely criticised revamp of ITN's flagship programme.

Stewart Purvis, editor-in-chief at ITN, said it demonstrated the success of the decision to change the format of the programme. Ratings also showed that News at Ten maintained a lead over the BBC's Six O'Clock News.