A TV news service from STV, dedicated solely to Edinburgh and the East of Scotland, has unveiled its reporting team.
The service – initially to operate as a six-month pilot – will see STV's current central belt news provision split in two, with Glasgow and Edinburgh services operating in parallel – from 6pm, for half an hour, and then also at 10.30pm, for a news update.
At present, a single 6pm show, from Glasgow, provides viewers in the east and west of the country with short opt-outs, lasting just a few minutes, for local news.
And the new reporting team, operating from Edinburgh, will be Juliet Dunlop and Caroline Henderson, with weather presenter, Sean Batty, also involved, although he will be appearing in STV's other news programmes as well.
Says a statement issued by STV: “Juliet Dunlop, who will front the new programme that will be produced and presented from Edinburgh, joins the team at STV from the BBC in London, where she gained ten years experience as a news presenter and reporter. During her time with the BBC, she was a presenter for BBC News Channel, BBC World News, BBC World News Today, BBC1 Daytime Summaries and BBC On Demand.
“Hailing from West Lothian, Juliet is also a former broadcast journalist for BBC News 24 and BBC Scotland.”
No date has been set for the Edinburgh pilot to begin, except “later this year”, although Dunlop is officially starting work at STV from the 18th of next month.
Henderson, a former broadcast journalist from the BBC in Newcastle, joined the STV News team in October last year.
The statement also quotes STV’s Head of News, Gordon Macmillan, saying: “I’m delighted to welcome Juliet to the STV News team. STV is committed to delivering a more locally focused news service for Scotland and with such a strong presenting team now in place, I’m confident that our viewers in the east will benefit greatly from the new Edinburgh-based programme.”
Viewers in Glasgow and the west of Scotland will continue to receive the current STV News at Six, presented by John MacKay.
STV also operates a separate news programme from 6pm for the north of the country, out of Aberdeen.
News that there was to be an Edinburgh and east of Scotland news pilot on STV was revealed in January.
