ITV chooses Tom Bradby to anchor its general election coverage

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/03/itv-tom-bradby-anchor-general-election

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ITV political editor Tom Bradby is to take over from veteran anchor Alastair Stewart to front ITV’s general election coverage, with Julie Etchingham chairing the channel’s leaders’ debate.

Stewart, who has anchored or co-presented five out of the last six elections, is to present ITV’s coverage the day after polling day, analysing the final results and focusing on the formation of the government.

The selection of Bradby marks a changing of the guard and a move to bring in a younger generation, Stewart has been a familiar face on ITV’s election day coverage since the 1980s.

He co-anchored the 1987 general election with Sir Alastair Burnet, 1992’s with Jon Snow; and the 1997 and 2005 elections with Jonathon Dimbleby.

In 2010 Stewart was the sole host of ITV’s election coverage and chaired the first leaders’ debate, which was between the leaders of the three biggest parties and averaged 9.4 million viewers.

News at Ten co-host Etchingham is taking on the role this time and will be the first woman to host a televised leaders’ debate.

Discussions have been taking place over an online debate run by YouTube, the Guardian and the Telegraph.

Etchingham said: “I’m thrilled to be part of ITV’s line-up covering next year’s general election, which is set to be a fascinating race for leadership. We’ll be following every single step of the campaign and holding party leaders to account on the most important issues affecting our viewers around the UK.”

As well as Bradby’s new key role on election day, during the election campaign ITV will also be airing twice-weekly live editions of Bradby’s weekly discussion show The Agenda, which features topics ranging from politics to popular culture.

Bradby said: “This looks set to be one of the most unpredictable elections in recent history, which will present us with a unique and fascinating set of challenges on election night. Making sense of it all for our viewers will be an incredibly exciting challenge and I am really thrilled to have been offered the chance to play such a key role in that process.”

The BBC has also been looking to the next generation of general election presenters and has already announced that next year’s will be David Dimbleby’s last, with him hosting the night of the poll from 10pm-7am and Huw Edwards taking over as lead presenter on the Friday morning and hosting coverage until 10pm.

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