NO NEWS At Ten is still not good news for some viewers. But change was inevitable as ITV faced up to the challenge of boasting audiences and advertising revenue in the increasingly-competitive world of multi-channel broadcasting.

Yet 15 months on from the axing of News At Ten, the network is still under pressure from regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC), to think again.

Last Friday, the ITV Network submitted its final proposals to the ITC which meets today to discuss them. The ITC will be looking to see if ITV's ideas will boost audiences for national and regional news bulletins, and will satisfy the conditions imposed when permission to end News At Ten was given.

The restructuring has led to a slump in viewers for ITV news programmes, causing renewed calls from the "bring back the bongs" brigade. They are unlikely to win. The channel has too much at stake to backtrack. This is not a matter of losing face by admitting they were wrong. It's just that there's no place for such a programme at that time of night if ITV is to survive in today's cut-throat world of broadcasting with more channels chasing the same number of viewers.

They are running a commercial business and the extra £100m in advertising revenue is adequate compensation for the loss of two million viewers for the late evening news programme. The network will do everything in its power to resist calls from the ITC, itself under pressure from politicians and decision-makers to force the reinstatement of News At Ten.

After five years of debate, ITV was allowed to end the award-winning programme despite misgivings by MPs and TV watchdogs. Prime Minister Tony Blair was among those who opposed the idea although, unlike John Major when he was in Number Ten, he didn't intervene to prevent the axe falling in March last year.

But Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, chairman of the Commons select committee on culture, media and sport, called the move "a new milestone in the dumbing down of Britain".

So out went the 5.40pm and 10pm news programmes. In came the Early Evening News at 6.30pm and Nightly News at 11pm. Presenter Trevor McDonald switched to the earlier bulletin with Dermot Murnaghan fronting the later one whose ratings are two million down on those for News At Ten.

The ITC noted in its report that the editorial quality and range of ITN's service "had remained undiminished" while adding the decline in numbers watching was "unsatisfactory". The total audience for ITV's early and late news has fallen by 13.9 per cent.

The knock-on effect which forced nightly regional news shows into earlier time slots has been even more severe. Tyne Tees Television's North-East Tonight suffered an initial "dramatic fall" after being scheduled directly opposite BBC1's Neighbours which accounts for a 55 per cent audience share in the North-East, the highest in the country.

Changes in the hour-long programme presented by Mike Neville have helped bring back audiences, although regional news audiences nationally are down 22 per cent. These alarming figures were a major factor behind last week's ITC announcement of proposals to protect regional programming.

The scheduling showdown has resulted from the ITC's review of the situation one year after News At Ten's bongs were silenced. Just as it was inevitable that a later news programme would attract fewer viewers, it was foreseeable that any review of the changes would have an element of "bring back News At Ten". That the matter would drag on so long was less predictable. Having rejected the first set of ITV proposals to boost audiences for news bulletins, the ITC gave it until its meeting today to suggest alternatives.

ITV's new suggestions are believed to include the return of News At Ten - but only in the run-up to the general election. It had suggested previously adhering to its current schedule but adding five minutes to news bulletins and spending more on marketing.

The row comes at a bad time with the network under fire for the quality of its other programmes in the annual review. The ITC took the network to task for some of its factual programming and for a lack of good new shows.

ITV does have reason to be cheerful, having achieved the aim of arresting years of audience decline by upping the programme budget and employing marketing techniques.

Year on year, peaktime audiences rose following the restructuring of the schedule made possible by the end of News At Ten.

The fact is that more than a quarter of ITV's audience was switching off when the news came on at 10pm, something that couldn't be allowed to continue if more advertisers were to be attracted. The network could say with some justification it was responding to viewers' demands who wanted something other than news at that time of night. And it has worked with ITV reporting its10pm audience has increased by 1.2m on average since the demise of News At Ten.

But at what cost to standards? Critics feel the programmes with which the 8pm-11pm schedules have been filled haven't always justified ditching News At Ten.

Big movies have played a smaller role than anticipated, mainly because they have been seen on cable, satellite and video before reaching the terrestrial channels.

The ITC criticised factual programming for "a sameness in much of the material presented and its tone. Some viewed as a bad move the ditching of the long-running World In Action in favour of more frivolous offerings such as The World's Worst Car Crashes and When Celebrities Strip.

Even ITV's new showpiece magazine Tonight With Trevor McDonald has been accused of "dumbing down" factual coverage, being described by one critic as "Mickey Mouse current affairs with Dumbo presentation and Dopey material".

There are few choices available to resolve the stalemate. Introducing the News at 10.30pm would be a compromise but would mean ITV couldn't run two hour films and dramas after the 9pm watershed without interruption by the news, one of the reasons it wanted News At Ten moved in the first place.

Perhaps the BBC will intervene and save the day. Newly-arrived director general Greg Dyke is apparently considering moving the Nine O'Clock News on an hour to become the Ten O'Clock News as part of his plans to overhaul the channel's news coverage. That would resolve the scheduling face off between the ITC and ITV - and be very good news for viewers still suffering from the absence of News At Ten.