ITV News Channel to close

beer enigma

Is this because of SKY/FOX competition ?

British broadcaster ITV is to close its News Channel, it announced today.

Around 70 mostly editorial jobs are expected to go as a result, according to sources.

The National Union of Journalists condemned the move as an “absolute outrage”.

Director of Television for ITV Simon Shaps said: "The question we have asked ourselves is what does news look like in five or 10 years' time?

“The answer is that it looks very different from the traditional 24-hour rolling news format that we are used to now.

“Increasingly, viewers will want news on demand via a variety of different platforms and we are investing in the technology and expertise to deliver that."

L1011

Apparently Sky News and the BBC were pulling about 4M+ viewers for the oil storage fire, ITV News <1.5M. Doesn't help that its only on DTT in the UK for 12 hours a day, and that its at the arse end of the Sky EPG for news - EPG never got compacted up after the Money Channel and similar closed down, so its got an even more arse end number.

DMC

ITV News Channel always looked the poor relation compared to the other two.

I won't feel too sorry for it passing ('cept for those employed), IF it improves the news bulletins on ITV1. ITV will also get ITN to produce news for ITV2 and ITV3.

ITV News Channel axed

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1667091,00.html

Tara Conlan
Wednesday December 14, 2005

ITV is closing the ITV News Channel after five years on air.

Executives and staff are being told at a meeting this morning by the ITV chief executive of nations and regions and news, Clive Jones, and the ITN chief executive, Mark Wood, that the service is being axed.

The number of jobs that will be lost is not yet known, with estimates ranging from 25 to 70.

The money saved by the demise of ITV News will be ploughed into new international bureaux. ITV News' northern operations will also be given more money and new bulletins are to be launched on digital channels ITV2 and ITV3 instead.

The future of ITV News Channel has been in doubt since its hours on Freeview were halved two months ago to make way for ITV's new children's channel, which is due to launch in February.

The service will go off air by the end of January.

Fears it was under threat were heightened after a memo outlining the "imminent closure" of the service was left on a printer at the channel's Gray's Inn Road headquarters in London.

The memo was circulated among news channel staff but they were told no decision had yet been made.

ITV was faced with the problem that it needs to find space on Freeview for its new children's channel, due to launch on February 14.

The rolling news station had been winning plaudits but had its broadcast hours halved on Freeview, the platform on which it performs best. From 6pm to 6am the channel has been replaced by ITV4.

Without the Freeview slot, the ITV News Channel would only run only on satellite and cable, damaging its audience.

Staff had been hoping for a reprieve until after Christmas after ITV delayed a decision on its future at the beginning of this month.

Only a fortnight ago it hired former Sky News presenter Scott Chisholm to host the news channel's breakfast show, which launched on Monday.

The death of ITV News Channel now leaves the market open for rivals BBC News 24 and Sky News.

Mossy Monk

not a channel i ever put on so i wont miss it tbh

Elmo

The death of ITV News Channel now leaves the market open for rivals BBC News 24 and Sky News.

What the point in saying that? Other then stating the obiovous.

I never liked ITV News I alway felt it was stuck in the 1980's.

Would it not have made more sence to carry the ITV News Channel on freeview until CITV start up in Feb?

“The answer is that it looks very different from the traditional 24-hour rolling news format that we are used to now.

Whats it going to look like?

Increasingly, viewers will want news on demand via a variety of different platforms and we are investing in the technology and expertise to deliver that.

That's just something he has to say to make it look like they are interested in News.

Will Greg Dyke ever be at the helms of ITV?

Do ITN provide more4news?

Mossy Monk

moving this to Broadcasting

mike65

ITV spend 150 mill on buying Friends Reunited website and close down a news channel. Says it all really.

Mike.

Elmo

ITV spend 150 mill on buying Friends Reunited

What is this website?

mike65

http://www.friendsreunited.co.uk/

Mike.

Skyuser

Bad move if they want to keep on par with the BBC. I tought they were about to catch up with BBC with all the digital channels they were adding.

lawhec

The ultimate reason the ITV News channel is closing is that ITV4 is due to launch in February. In ITVs case there is no more room on Freeview to launch another channel. Although not too expensive to run, ITV NC is running at a loss. Its evening hours on Freeview have already been sacrificed for ITV4 and its morning and afternoon hours will be for ITV Kids, kicking ITV News off Freeview. ITV feel that the channel cannot survive being just on satellite and cable and so have taken the decision to close it.

Elmo

ITV NC is running at a loss.

Is news not a loss leader in the broadcasting industry.


Wow that site looks like it was worth 150million.

I will be selling the following site at a bargin, only 50million will take loss making News Channel as payment.

www.friendswherethe****aretheynow.com
www. your-on-this-site-because-your-friends-dont-like-you-and-have-made-sure-not-to-give-you-any-contact-details.com

Sin e an Fear

I won't miss it - I didn't get multichannel for it, and hardly ever watch ITV anyway. It had potential as the ITN News Channel, but once it became ITV-branded it turned to dross. They could have done deals with overseas broadcasters (ITN had a World News bulletin years before the BBC did) but never exploited it. They just left Sky News and BBC World to fill the gap in the market for non-US English-language TV news. PBS in the US stopped showing ITN's bulletins, which people only watched because of Daljit Dhaliwal, who's now on CNN.

Sorry for the people who will lose their jobs - with the exception of Scott Chisholm - any child of foul-mouthed neanderthal Sam Chisholm (formerly of BSkyB) deserves to suffer.

DMC

Northern Correspondent wrote:

that ITV4 is due to launch in February.

Just a slight correction, I'm sure you mean the proposed ITV Kids channels, which will share airtime with ITV4. As you say, on Freeview, ITV NC was cut to 6am-6pm, ironically, on the platform it performed very well on.

Elmo

Perhaps off the topic

What do ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 do?

I have only seen ITV2. And from what I gather it's a kind of teenybobber ITV1.

Are they like the BBC and the C4 channels

BBC1 - Mainstream
BBC2 - Altenative
BBC3 - Comedy/Youth
BBC4 - Arts/History

C4 - Altenative/Mainstream
E4 - Music/Youth
4More - Arts/Documentryies/Adult
FilmFour - Film

DMC

More or less.

ITV1 - Mainstream
ITV2 - Lifestyle/womens
ITV3 - Drama
ITV4 - Men/Sports

Charles Slane

Poor old Scott Chisholm.

Imagine starting a new high-profile job on a TV station, believing it to be the restart your career needed, only to have the channel close down the next month .....

lawhec

DMC wrote:

Just a slight correction, I'm sure you mean the proposed ITV Kids channels, which will share airtime with ITV4. As you say, on Freeview, ITV NC was cut to 6am-6pm, ironically, on the platform it performed very well on.

Whoops! I stand corrected, as you say Damo, it is ITV Kids that is planned to launch in February. As you also say it is on the Freeview platform where ITV News performs best on, where its only competition is BBC News 24 and Sky News, as opposed to satellite where there are more competitiors and cable where penetration is limited.

watty

Don't ITN do most of the running of Euronews?

I've been watching Russia Today, a new English Language 24hr channel on Hotbirds 13E.

They seem to be able to have more varied World News than BBC World, yet neary every item has a Russian connection. Stretching across from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia to China and Alaska, I guess they have a lot of Geography.

Any time I tuned to ITV news I found it lackluster even compared with Euromews, never mind BBC World, BBC News 24, CN N and Sky.

I think CNN is poorer since TimeWarner took over. And BBC World is better than BBC News 24 unless you live in the English Home Counties.

I have no idea why Sky News is FTA on most satellites while Fox News is a Pay channnel. Frankly Fox News is rubbish compare with Sky and yet are essentially the same owner.

Elmo

I have no idea why Sky News is FTA on most satellites while Fox News is a Pay channnel. Frankly Fox News is rubbish compare with Sky and yet are essentially the same owner.

Different Countries, Different appreacations of news. Sky News was asked to get more Nationalistic in its views.

Euronews can be headwrecking. Espically the weather.

icdg

Even RTÉ is reporting this story. The death of a 24 hour news channel is bad news (for us news junkies anyway), the fact that this channel had spent so much time on air as a very basic service, and only recently (since the 2004 relaunch) had improved massively (and with Sky News' recent change in focus, now looks more like traditional Sky News than Sky News does) means it is a disappointment it is to close.

DMC

watty wrote:

Don't ITN do most of the running of Euronews?

Always has been run out of Lyon, but ITN did own a share or all of it. Not sure now, no mention on either website.

byte

RTE will look at it with interest, and probably use it as another excuse why we should not have a 24hr news channel here in Ireland. And no, I'm not including that silly webstream that claims to be a news channel!

Ulsterman 1690

quite frankly I could never see the point in ITV news I mean what did it do that BBC or even Sky dont do far better ?

A 24 hour RTE news channel wouldnt be a bad idea actually and wouldnt actually cost that much to run given that much of its content would be basically recycled every 20 minutes.

Euronews = worthy but usually boring

JohnC.

In other forums, it is very hard to find anyone sad at the demise of ITV News Channel. Pretty much everyone thought it was rubbish. Which would explain why it is closing.

BuffyBot

I think CNN is poorer since TimeWarner took over

Odd that, considering they've owned it for a long time. I think you mean since TimeWarner merged with AOL. Even then I'm not sure that really had much impact on CNN.

As for ITV News Channel..well I'm not exactly mourning it's loss either - it always seemed a bit lacklustre in comparison to Sky News and BBC News 24

watty

Yes CNN has been bad a long time

The TimeWarner/AOL thing didn't do anyone any good except the Shareholders of inflated value AOL shares.

DMC

Branding is always an issue here.

Ever since 1999 when ITV went for "ITV News" rather than what it did for the previous 44 years and called it "ITN", the die was cast.

ITN still produce the news, but its only at the end of the bulletin, with the end caption, do you see any reference to ITN.

ITN was, and in my eyes, still is, a very strong brand.

I watched the ITN News Channel a lot more before ITV took it over and rebranded. Mainly because then, it had its own reports which were produced for Channel 4 and five news to fill. Then, when the ITV News branding was enforced, it didnt have the other channels output, and subsiquently, died for me.

Some people did like it. The channel itself got more awards in this calendar year that BBC News 24 or Sky News. That still doesn't bring in the shareholders much joy, if the bucks are being sucked out of it.

Mayo Exile

The death of a 24 hour news channel is bad news

Indeed. It is bad to see a news channel go out of business. Don't forget you are losing a quality channel (maybe not as good as BBC News 24 and Sky News) that's FTA (free to air) as well. God, you could fill 10 pages of all the rubbish that deserve to go out of business before it, that's FTA, FTV and stuff that you have to pay for!

Elmo

I think RTE will still go with a 24 Hr news service. RTE ONE is mainly news anyway so they would just be using economies of scales to produce the new news channel.

They might even put it out free on Sat.

watty

Mayo Exile wrote:

Indeed. It is bad to see a news channel go out of business. Don't forget you are losing a quality channel (maybe not as good as BBC News 24 and Sky News) that's FTA (free to air) as well. God, you could fill 10 pages of all the rubbish that deserve to go out of business before it, that's FTA, FTV and stuff that you have to pay for!

Absolutely!