I spent the ten o’clock hour flicking a bit to see the return of Sir Trevor and News at Ten, and to see what the BBC was doing.
The opening title sequence was actually pretty good, although it felt like there were a few too many bongs. ITV had an exclusive interview with someone related to the Diana inquiry. At which I immediately turned over to the BBC News where John Simpson was reporting live from somewhere in Zimbabwe, a country where the BBC is banned.
The BBC also had the latest in a series of reports from someone on a Greenpeace ship in the Southern Ocean where they were trailing a Japanese whaling fleet trying to prevent them from killing the animals for “science.” A good report, but largely a repeat of several previous reports.
Over on ITV they’d gone even further south and sent a correspondent to the middle of Antarctica. The live link when it came was great quality unlike the BBC’s videophone, although getting a satellite signal back from a ship in choppy seas must be technically harder.
The “And Finally” was more serious than the skateboarding ducks of old, instead relating the story of a crew rescued from their listing (and now sunk) ship in the Channel.
Overall, it wasn’t bad. But I’ll still probably end up watching the BBC. Or, in reality, Newsnight.