Viewers wait all year for News at Ten to return, then five come along all at once

First there was no News at Ten; now there could be five. The howls from politicians and sections of the public when ITV moved its bulletin have been answered with a vengeance. By the middle of next year they could watch more bulletins at 10pm than the latest hi-tech video machines could cope with.

First there was no News at Ten; now there could be five. The howls from politicians and sections of the public when ITV moved its bulletin have been answered with a vengeance. By the middle of next year they could watch more bulletins at 10pm than the latest hi-tech video machines could cope with.

To add to the confusion, at least two bulletins will be called News at Ten, though not the one we still think of as News at Ten. First there is the original. ITV's announcement yesterday that it has caved in to moral and legal pressure and is bringing back its new 11pm news to 10pm means the programme we remember as News at Ten will be back, albeit slightly shorter and only three days a week.

But while ITV's News at Ten has been away, others have been busy. ITV may have had copyright on the words News at Ten but you would not have known it. Sky News, never likely to miss such an obvious trick, re-christened its hourly bulletin at 10pm Sky News at Ten.

And then ITN, which makes News at Ten, recently started a 24-hour digital news service. It uses many of ITN's most famous names and so at 10pm you can see Julia Somerville introducing ITN's News at Ten. As she cues up reports from all the regular ITN correspondents you have to rub your eyes to remember you are not watching the real News at Ten.

Add to this BBC News' 24-hourly bulletin and that is yet another news programme at 10pm.

And then of course there is the biggest pretender of all to the 10pm spot - BBC1. As the BBC director-general, Greg Dyke, announced in Edinburgh last month, he is moving the 9pm news to 10pm to achieve the double whammy of bigger audiences for news while also improving BBC's mid-evening fare with more ambitious dramas, films and comedies in the liberated 8pm-to-10pm slot.

That at least was Mr Dyke's plan. It could now be in tatters. Industry sources felt last night that it was highly unlikely that the Government, with the interests of public-service broadcasting in mind, could allow the BBC to move its news to a slot already well catered for. BBC governors will also have to be convinced again by Mr Dyke.

Adding to BBC embarrassment is that it has just appointed an extremely able new controller of BBC1, Lorraine Heggessey, who has said one of her aims is to commission "impactful" dramas and factual programmes to replace the 9pm news. The BBC's top team will almost certainly have to go back to the drawing board in an awkward climb-down.

It is interesting to study the seemingly anodyne statement Chris Smith, Secretary of State for Culture and Media, made last night in reaction to the ITV decision. He said: "My primary concern has been the decline in news audiences which followed the demise of News at Ten and I hope this announcement will help to reverse that trend."

Industry analysts pointed out that Mr Smith's stress on this point was significant. If his primary concern is to stop the decline in news audiences he is hardly likely to permit the BBC to move its 9pm news to a now very crowded field in which their news audience would now probably decline. The BBC has not yet submitted its plans to Mr Smith.

For ITV too this decision is a humiliating climbdown. David Liddiment, ITV's director of programmes, said last night that the new scheduling represented an "imaginative solution".

But Mr Liddiment and his colleagues have consistently opposed moving the news back to 10pm. They have defied the urgings of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee and have twice defied the Independent Television Commission, the regulatory body.

ITV and the ITC were due to meet in the High Court on Tuesday to resolve the dispute. ITV's climbdown would seem to indicate that its legal advice was not favourable to winning the confrontation. There would also be the worry for the organisation that even if it mounted a strong legal case a judge might still rule that it had to bring back News at Ten at a full-length 30 minutes five days a week.

ITV is still maintaining the stance that its main evening 30- minute news is at 6.30 and that is why the new 10pm news will be only 20 minutes, the same length as ITV's present 11pm news. The real reason is that it will want to start documentaries and other programmes at 10.20. Its research shows that audiences drop away if the start is much later than that.

No one has really won: ITV has had to eat its words; the ITC has not achieved the complete return of News at Ten it sought; the BBC now no longer has a clear field on terrestrial television at 10pm for its planned news bulletin next year. And viewers face the "FA Cup Final" problem of a news programme on both main channels at the same time.