Television journalist and producer who played a key role in the success of ITV’s News at TenThe television journalist David Phillips, who has died aged 87, was instrumental in helping ITV’s News at Ten to bring in a new age of reporting and steal a march on the
BBC when it was launched in 1967.
Made by ITN, it was Britain’s first half-hour news programme, giving in-depth treatment to the day’s issues – slightly at variance with what Phillips and Nigel Ryan, its senior producer, saw on a trip to
New York to investigate how networks in the US filled the extra time. “What the Americans have done is simply increase the number of stories in their bulletins,” wrote Phillips to ITN’s editor, Geoffrey Cox. “They have not come up with a new style, a new approach.”