ITV Cymru Wales announces its line up of coverage of the General Election 2015 across news, programmes and online
ITV Cymru Wales today announces its extensive line up of coverage of General Election 2015 across news, programmes and online.
Political Editor Adrian Masters and our team of specialist correspondents and reporters will be providing in-depth reports, interviews and analysis from the campaign trail around Wales in the run-up to and beyond polling day on May 7th.
The centrepiece of the coverage will be the live, peak time Wales Election Debate on April 22 with Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb (Conservatives), Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith (Labour), Kirsty Williams AM (Liberal Democrats), Leanne Wood AM (Plaid Cymru), Nathan Gill MEP (UKIP) and Pippa Bartolotti (Wales Green Party).
In addition to comprehensive coverage on Wales At Six and our news bulletins, there will be special coverage online together with four hour-long General Election editions of our political programme Sharp End each Wednesday running up to Polling Day.
Adrian Masters will be presenting his own, authored four-part series Adrian’s Election Adventure starting on April 13 that promises “politics without the politicians”, featuring the views of voters from around Wales.
ITV Cymru Wales will also be producing General Election programming for S4C including a Hacio debate for young voters.
Wales At Six
Wales At Six, with alternating anchors Jonathan Hill and Andrea Byrne, will feature daily weekday Election 2015 reports, interviews and analysis.
Adrian Masters will be in studio and on the campaign trail with interviews and insights. There’ll also be updates from our reporters with the main parties: Alexandra Lodge (Conservatives); Megan Boot (Labour); Nicola Hendy (Plaid Cymru); Mike Griffiths (Liberal Democrats); Owain Phillips (UKIP).
Each will be the point of contact with the parties, covering the big set-piece days and feeding into our on-the-day coverage on air and online with every twist and turn of the campaign.
We'll also be reporting on the key marginal seats in Wales as Political Reporter Owain Phillips visits the three key “battleground” areas: the north Wales coastline, the south-east, and west Wales.
Our team of specialist journalists - Health and Social Affairs Correspondent Rob Osborne, Business Correspondent Carole Green and Education Reporter Tom Sheldrick – will also be on the campaign trail. They’ll be presenting in-depth reports on the five big Election issues: the NHS, Jobs, Immigration, Education and the Cost of Living.
The voices of voters will feature prominently in our coverage. Carl Edwards will be travelling around Wales meeting people and helping them to produce video “selfies” on their Election concerns for broadcast. The social media feedback will be shared with viewers live on Wales At Six.
We’ll also be revealing the results of three specially commissioned “Welsh Political Barometer” voter intention polls, carried out by YouGov in conjunction with Cardiff University.
Online and Social Media
ITV Cymru Wales’ news team will be publishing their reports directly to the ITV News website across the day from the campaign trail.
We’ll be making use of social media apps to engage with online users and provide unique and engaging content for Wales at Six. There will also be regular “Ask Adrian” Q&A sessions on the ITV Wales Facebook page.
When the polls have closed we’ll be using the latest social media tracking technology to monitor trends and talking points as the results come in.
The Wales Election Debate
Adrian Masters will be live from the ITV Network Debate on Thursday, April 2 as Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood prepares for the biggest event in her political career and her party gets ready for an evening of unprecedented attention and scrutiny from the UK media.
Then on Wednesday, April 22, Adrian will host and moderate The Wales Election Debate – a 90-minute live programme on ITV Cymru Wales at 8pm.
An invited audience of 200 people will be putting their questions to Welsh Secretary Stephen Crabb (Conservatives), Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith (Labour), Kirsty Williams AM (Liberal Democrats), Leanne Wood AM (Plaid Cymru), Nathan Gill MEP (UKIP) and Pippa Bartolotti (Wales Green Party).
Programmes
Adrian’s Election Adventure: Four 30-minute weekly programmes starting on Monday, 13 April (8pm) in the run up to Polling Day. Adrian has travelled the length and breadth of Wales by road, rail, plane and boat, exploring the eight key issues that will dominate the debate in Wales.
From jobs to immigration, from democracy to devolution, Adrian begins each quest in a historically relevant location before discussing the topics with voters and experts. Aired during the short campaign, this will be Welsh politics without the politicians for a prime-time audience.
Sharp End - Election 2015: Presented by Adrian Masters for three of the four editions, the programme will be moving to Wednesdays after News at Ten for the duration of the short campaign in April. The studio panels will be expanded to accommodate up to six guests.
The live edition on April 22 will be presented by Andrea Byrne, and will feature reactions from guest panellists to The Wales Election Debate.
The Election editions of Sharp End will also feature filmed reports on the “battleground” issues in the north, west and south of Wales. There will also be in-depth interviews with the key politicians on the campaign trail.
Programmes for S4C
ITV Cymru Wales’ Election 2015 programmes for S4C will include three special programmes with guest contributors looking at the policies of the main parties. They will be followed by Catrin Jones’ interviews with five senior Election candidates.
Our current affairs strand Hacio will feature an hour-long debate giving young people a voice. The Hacio website will also feature “user-generated” constituency profiles from young people around Wales.