Julie Etchingham

News­readers are necessarily calm and rarely ruffled. Until, in the case of ITV News heavyweight Julie Etchingham, they get to interview their teen hero, Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. “I was so flummoxed – I’d been such a teenage fan that I couldn’t actually get a sentence out. I made a complete fool of myself,” she admitted.  

Etchingham, who was talking at an RTS Devon and Cornwall event in November, went on to identify general election leaders’ debates as her most terrifying on-screen experiences. The worst was her first, the unprecedented seven-way debate in 2015.  

In her third and final appearance at an RTS Cambridge Convention, the outgoing CEO of Ofcom, Sharon White, gave a candid insight into what she described as the regulator’s tense relationship with the BBC, and reflected on why the TV industry had failed to improve its record on diversity.

Chair

Julie Etchingham, Journalist and Broadcaster 

Speaker

Sharon White, Chief Executive, Ofcom

Many of the show’s team past and present, together with some of its legions of fans, packed the Lowry’s Compass Room at an RTS North West event in early April to celebrate – alongside Tonight’s first host Sir Trevor McDonald – the show’s 20^th anniversary.

ITV news chief Michael Jermey outlined “the alchemy which makes the show so successful”. Tonight, which has always been made in the North West, “has never been part of the ‘London bubble’,” he argued. “Its roots [are] in the ITV heartland.”

Julie Etchingham reflects on her famous 'fields of wheat' interview with Prime Minister Theresa May

Channel 4 News’ Matt Frei will battle it out with ITV News at Ten’s Julie Etchingham and BBC Two’s Victoria Derbyshire for the title of Network Presenter of the Year, while Al Jazeera English, BBC News Channel and Sky News are in the running for the News Channel of the Year Award. Matt Frei is also nominated for the Television Journalist of the Year Award alongside CNN International’s Nima Elbagir and Sky News’ Alex Crawford. Channel 4 News, BBC News at Ten and Sky News at Five are nominated for the Daily News Programme of the Year Award.