As the polls close on 7th May, ITV News Political Editor, Tom Bradby, will take the chair on election night leading ITV's coverage of the closest and most unpredictable battle for Number 10 in a generation. From 9.55pm, he'll be on air with the fastest results and the sharpest analysis from an expert panel including two of the country's leading psephologists: Professor Colin Rallings, ITV News' election analyst for more than 20 years; and Professor Jane Green, from Manchester University, one of the Directors of the British Election Study. Tom will be joined by special guests throughout the night, including former Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell and former Labour MPs David Blunkett and Lord Mandelson.
Tom Bradby, host of ITV's Election 2015 programme: All the signs are this will be the most exciting election of modern times, with a number of potentially complex political scenarios opening up. We are going to focus all our energies on making sense of it for our viewers. You can t always say this with politics, but it looks like it will be a night to remember.
Direct from moderating ITV's seven way leaders' debate, News at Ten's Julie Etchingham will play a leading role in ITV s coverage. She'll be interrogating key data in the studio from how the crucial target seats are behaving to the maths of the new House of Commons. She'll be using ITV's Commons Calculator' to work out if anyone can form a majority or secure enough support from other parties to run Britain for the next five years.
OPINION ROOM
ITV News' Nina Hossain will be joined by key commentators and analysts in ITV's specially designed Opinion Room' a working environment where the country's top writers, bloggers and thinkers will watch the results come in and share their expert interpretation of the night.
Guests will include The Times political writers Daniel Finkelstein, Phillip Collins, Matthew Parris and Jenni Russell; Professor Vernon Bogdanor; Guardian columnist Owen Jones; The Spectator's Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman; former Liberal Democrat advisor Miranda Green; author of Revolt on the Right', Matthew Goodwin; LBC's Nick Ferrari; writer and biographer, David Torrance; political and social justice commentator, Sophia Cannon; Institute of Government's Dr Catherine Haddon; Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, Katie Ghose; political strategist, Jag Singh; journalist and campaigner, Paris Lees; Queen guitarist, Brian May; poet, Musa Okwonga; British Future's Sunder Katwala and UCL Constitution Unit's Robert Hazell.
Members of Twitter s Government and Elections team will be embedded in the Opinion Room, where they will provide live, real-time updates on how the election is happening on social media and insight into how the campaign has unfolded on Twitter.
With 35 million people using Facebook in the UK, and many using it to share their opinions on the issues that matter most to them, politics and elections were the most talked about topics on the site last year. Facebook's government and politics experts will be with ITV in the Opinion Room to discuss trending election topics and provide up-to-date analysis on how the conversation is unfolding throughout the night.
Alex Chandler, Programme Editor of ITV's Election 2015 programme, said: First with the results, fast with analysis and focused on telling the story of the election as it happens, ITV's overnight programme will guide viewers through the most complex and unpredictable race in a generation with comprehensive coverage of the battle for Number 10 and what lies ahead once the results are in.
AROUND THE UK
ITV News' team of specialist journalists, from Deputy Political Editor Chris Ship to the dedicated target teams led by James Mates, Carl Dinnen, Emily Morgan and Rohit Kachroo, will be unpicking the most complex issues of election night for viewers and challenging the decision-makers at the heart of the government, supported by ITV's political journalists at Westminster. Correspondents Martin Geissler and Romilly Weeks will be based in Scotland to report on one of the biggest angles of Election 2015.
ITV News will be live in more than 60 locations across the UK, while 300 lenses will be capturing events on the road across the UK. ITV regional news will have more than 120 reporters at counts across the UK who will support the network programme throughout the night, contributing to rolling news coverage online.
At 10pm, an exit poll commissioned by ITV News, Sky News and the BBC will be rolled out across channels giving the first indication of just how tight the race will be.
ONLINE AND SOCIAL
Online, itv.com/news will provide the fastest results and analysis throughout the night and into day two. Results will be delivered to users as quickly as possible and by region, with a user-friendly tally on every page across desktop, mobile and app as the night develops.
Significant events and analysis will be mined from the TV programme and uploaded to social media via Snappy TV, while key counts will be livestreamed as they happen in one curated live feed of raw declarations. With social at the heart of ITV's election offering, visualisations will project how the night is unfolding, from popular moments, to key memes.
Ten regional ITV News sites will provide live seat results with special analysis tailored to both the region and 72 local areas within the ITV News App.
Jason Mills, Head of Digital, ITV News said: "The ITV News livestream was built exactly for this sort of night. Speed and the ability to tell the story as it unfolds in real time will be at the forefront of what we do. That coupled with the ITV regions and the central involvement of Twitter and Facebook will allow us to tell the story from every area of t
