Letter: News at Ten

Sir: Melvyn Bragg is a fine writer so it's surprising that his defence of the move of News at Ten ("Who cares abut News at Ten?", 23 November) appears to have been ghost written by ITV's spin doctors.

Lord Bragg is an experienced enough broadcaster to know that the idea that Newsnight is competing with the ITV Late News is nonsense.

One is on BBC2 and the other on ITV1: different channels, different audiences, different programmes. There was a time when ITV1 compared its news programmes with those on BBC1. Not any more. But ITV has an obsession with its news "beating" others. It can only be a matter of time before it claims to be beating the test card.

SIAN KEVILL

Editor

Newsnight, BBC

London W12