Letters: BBC's news victory

BBC's news victory

Sir: In his rather desperate defence of News and Current Affairs on ITV (letter, 22 September) David Liddiment, the director of programmes, is answering the wrong questions in making spurious comparisons between the BBC News and ITV News.

Nothing can disguise the fact that more than a million news viewers a day have deserted the ITV network since News at Ten was abolished.

The position for ITV's regional news is even more serious - losing 2.5 million viewers on the late regional news and 1 million on the early evening regional news.

The BBC News at Six is the country's most watched bulletin, with an average audience of 5.5 million, compared to 4.8 million for ITV's Evening News. The average audience for the Nine o'clock News is 5.1 million compared to 3.2 million for ITV's Nightly News.

In the past ITV and ITN have tried to compare the audience for their Evening News with the BBC News at Nine. It shows how far their new Nightly News audiences have fallen that now, for the first time, they are comparing it to Newsnight, which is on BBC2 and has a very different remit.

Likewise, Tonight replaced News at Ten and failed to reach its previous audiences, resulting in a rather desperate switch in scheduling.

Again, by claiming that Tonight is "beating" Panorama Mr Liddiment is answering a question no one is asking and making a comparison no one else is making.

STEPHEN MITCHELL

Head of News Programmes

BBC News, London W12