Debbie Ramsay has been appointed as the new editor of 5 News, ITN has this week announced.
Debbie joins 5 News from Channel 4 where she is Commissioning Editor for News and Current Affairs. Debbie will take up editorship of 5 News at a time of growth – across the first quarter of 2023, the programme grew 12% year-on-year among individuals, averaging 2.9% share and 301k viewers. The upward trajectory continued across April and May with the overall programme share up by 30% YoY.
Daniel Pearl, Commissioning Editor at Channel 5:
“Debbie is an outstanding and high-profile appointment. She has held senior roles at the BBC News and Channel 4 and will help accelerate the recent growth of 5 News.
“Debbie is well placed to build on the success of Cait’s superb editorship, during which she relaunched the News as an hour with the brilliant Dan Walker and Claudia-Liza Vanderpuije. We’re excited to see how Debbie develops 5 News and how she can bring its unique and distinctive voice to even more viewers.”
Before Channel 4, Debbie worked at the BBC for sixteen years. Most recently as an Executive Editor at BBC News in charge of commissioning original journalism, and before that as Head of Youth Journalism and in senior editorial roles at Radio 1 and 1Xtra, leading a large team of journalists to provide news for the BBC’s flagship multi-platform youth outlets.
She began her career working on local newspapers in the northwest of England, before moving into local radio there and in Birmingham before going on to Capital FM in presenting and breakfast news editor roles.
Debbie Ramsay:
“5 News already punches well above its weight, and this is a fantastic opportunity to work with an exceptional team to punch harder. The programme has incredible reach out of London and with women and I hope to tap into my experience of working with harder-to-reach audiences to boost that further.
“5News has a family feel and I want to emphasise that further with viewers who can play a role in telling us what they need, including as the team often do now, by covering stories that matter to them most and that no-one else is covering.”
Debbie will take up the post later in the autumn, taking over from Cait FitzSimons who has been 5 News editor for 5 years.
