Our challenges going into #IBC2023

There's been a LOT of change at ITV News over the past 12 months. A refurbished newsroom, a technology upgrade, new laptops for all our journalists, a new On Demand service and a new studio and gallery to supplement our existing spaces, geared around non-linear broadcasting. And yet, it feels like we are just getting started. All our work has helped us catch up with the crowd. Now we're ready to get ahead.

AI: taking it on, not allowing a takeover

Unsurprisingly, we're excited by the uses AI can bring, but weary of synthesis or allowing speed to push our creativity. As a newsroom of longstanding, some consider our work a craft. Working with formulas, yes - but smart enough to know the impact of going with your gut. How can we keep that while pulling in the benefits of machine learning? In particular, I'm interested in what AI could do for our huge archive, for our graphics and for our edits.

Connectivity is key

We broadcast from anywhere. ANYWHERE. And very often, we edit in grubby car parks nowhere near anywhere. This year, we gave crews on the road access to our server. And they love it, when they can see it. But they'd like to see it more often and in more places. What have you got that can make that happen?

Too many programmes

We've launched some really cool stuff this year, and in the coming months, we've got more to come. Most are simple, intuitive, easy for journalists to adopt. But many of my team say they're reaching peak programme... one for this, another for that, a third and a forth and a fifth that they'd use if they could only remember how it works. They want new stuff - but they don't want more training sessions. It needs to be easy.

Meanwhile, the updates keep coming. Everything new keeps getting newer. And sometimes it doesn't talk to the programmes it used to. Our engineers have work to do, just to stand still. And that's before things go wrong.

What can you do to stop us drowning in really cool programmes that each do something different? How can we better manage updates and integrations between software?