UTV Live

Paul Clark

Sarah Clarke

## A Brief description

Utv live is the local news for Northern Ireland. The main news is at six O'Clock and lasts for 30 minutes, although it is on 3 times throughout the day as well. It contains all the latest news and sports information in Northern Ireland. it is broadcast from UTV's headquarters in Belfast.

## History

*UTV Live* was introduced in January 1993 as a new name for Ulster Television's existing news programmes; *Six Tonight*, the station's half-hour evening news magazine, and *Ulster Newstime* for shorter bulletins.

Coinciding with the launch of a new franchise, the main nightly programme, *UTV Live at Six* was extended from 30 minutes to an hour and introduced six months before Ulster Television was rebranded as UTV. The station had previously broadcast a daily one-hour news magazine programme, *Good Evening Ulster* - the first of its kind in the United Kingdom - which ran from 1979 to 1987.

Shorter *UTV Live* bulletins ran throughout the day, receiving subtitles such as *Morning News*. and *Early Evening News*

Between 1995 and January 2013, *UTV Live* bulletins were not transmitted during GMTV and *Daybreak* (ITV Breakfast); The breakfast service was previously produced by Reuters, ITN, and subsequently Macmillan Media, following a dispute in 1994 when UTV opted out of GMTV to provide extra coverage of the Loyalist ceasefire.

Following the introduction of the *ITV Evening News* in March 1999, the programme was brought forward by half an hour to start at 17:30. The first half-hour saw feature reports, light-hearted stories and the weather forecast branded as part of a separate programme, *UTV Life*, which ran before the main evening news, started at 18:00 and kept the *UTV Live* name. *UTV Live* and *UTV Life* were merged into one hour-long programme, running from 17:30, in 2002 and were split into separate programmes again on 3 September 2007, with the original titles in use from 1999 to 2001.

For one week in February 2004, UTV moved the first half-hour part of *UTV Live* in the schedules from 17:30 to 13:00, to accommodate the networked *24 Hour Quiz*.Although UTV claimed the change in slot for the features section of *UTV Live* would run until April 2004, viewer complaints saw *UTV Live* returned to the 17:30 slot one week later.

Mid-morning weekday and lunchtime weekend *UTV Live* bulletins were axed in February 2009 when the station was permitted to reduce their weekly news output from five hours and twenty minutes to four hours by regulator Ofcom following a lengthy review of the viability of PSB content across the whole UK. A separate sports bulletin, *Sport on Sunday*, was broadcast following the Sunday evening bulletin from September 1999 to early 2007. This bulletin was separate from the Sunday evening news as it was sponsored by the *Daily Mirror*.

Between February 2007 and April 2009, only the main weekday evening programme was branded as *UTV Live*, while all other bulletins were branded as *UTV News*.

*UTV Live* broadcast its final edition from Havelock House on 29 June 2018 and began broadcasting from UTV's new headquarters at City Quays on 2 July 2018.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, UTV news services were impacted. Running times of all short bulletins were reduced, and the main 6pm programme was for a while fronted by a single presenter instead of two.