Sir Trevor flounders in ratings game

Sir Trevor McDonald, the £1m-a-year anchorman of ITV's relaunched News At Ten, is reported to have asked his bosses whether he can take an entire month off this summer to relax. The way things are going in the ratings, he may be able to take as much time as he wants.

The news programmne was reborn last month in the hope of a return to the glory days of Alastair Burnet, Reginald Bosanquet, Selina Scott and the rest of the high-profile team who helped make News At Ten the news programme from the era of Vietnam through to the Thatcher years. It not only trounced the BBC News in the ratings; it was generally reckoned to be superior.

But in the first month of its reappearance, it has pulled in an average of only 2.7m viewers, compared with 4.8m tuning into BBC1's Ten O'Clock News.

Putting on a brace face, an ITV spokesman said: "We are pleased with the performance of News at Ten... It shows ITV1's commitment to a strong news brand at the heart of the schedule and has prompted an overwhelmingly positive response from our viewers and advertisers as well as our competitors."

Some media observers see a dark motive behind these words. They believe the ratings are much less important to ITV's chief executive Michael Grade than the political clout that having a peak-time half-hour news programme offers him. Specifically, it might help him in his battle to get rid of the arcane contracts rights renewal (CRR) system.

The CRR restricts the amount ITV is permitted to charge for advertising airtime by pegging rates to audience share. Some analysts have said its removal could boost ITV's profits by 20 per cent. Sir Trevor and his co-hosts Julie Etchingham and Mark Austin might be safe after all.