ITV News Channel to close this Friday

steviem

ITV News Channel to close before Christmas

Jason Deans, broadcasting editor
Monday December 19, 2005

The ITV News Channel is to cease broadcasting on Friday, more than a month earlier than expected.

ITV said it had brought forward the closure date for the rolling news service to December 23, following talks with ITV News Channel staff and suppliers.

The broadcaster originally said it planned to shut down the service by the end of January, when it announced last week it was pulling the plug on the ITV News Channel.

"Staff and management of the channel have agreed that we could not expect the News Channel's dedicated staff to work their usual long hours and shift patterns over Christmas at a time when the channel's closure is imminent," said the ITV news and regions chief executive, Clive Jones.

"Following ITV's announcement last week of a £2m investment in other areas of ITV's news service we will be looking at the opportunities created by the expansion of our newsgathering operation to redeploy as many staff as possible in the new year."

Up to 70 jobs may be lost with the closure of the channel.

From MediaGuardian.co.uk

mickymg2003

Didnt know the channel existed tbh.

byte

EuroNews probably has a higher audience in ROI and UK than ITV News Channel anyway! Heh

Although I seldom watched the channel, it'll still be a shame to see it go, as the choice was always good to have.

Lump

So that's why there was no ITV news on at nights anymore. I thought they were just rubbish. TBH, BBC News 24 and Sky has it wrapped up tbh.

John

Mossy Monk

indeed

ITV News Channel is a load of ****e. Sky News, while although ****e is superior and News 24 is excellent so it beats it too

OFDM

ITN suck, always have, always will. Sky News is just as bad.

BBC News 24 on the other hand is teh win. And I always like how they throw in the latest episode of ABC World News Tonight in the wee hours of the morning.

meldrew

Mossy Monk wrote:

indeed

ITV News Channel is a load of ****e. Sky News, while although ****e is superior and News 24 is excellent so it beats it too

How could one piece of s****e be superior to another piece of s****e ?

testicle

You're obviously not a connisseur of ****e

Mossy Monk

meldrew wrote:

How could one piece of s****e be superior to another piece of s****e ?

fair point

Sky News at least put some effort into it. ITV News presenters always look to me like they want to be brought outside and shot

Cabaal

testicle wrote:

You're obviously not a connisseur of ****e

damn this almost made me spit out what I was drinking when I read this :v:

Sky News is total ****e, Euronews is good tbh

meldrew

Mossy Monk wrote:

fair point

Sky News at least put some effort into it. ITV News presenters always look to me like they want to be brought outside and shot

Is Angela Rippon still on ITV News? I would'nt mind bringing her outside lol

Ray777

It's typical of ITV to take the decision to axe their news channel, rather than revamp and improve it. No doubt they'll pump the saved money into producing more vacuous reality crap and dull one-off dramas. I disagree that ITN suck though. They're responsible for Channel 4 News, which is by far the best news programme, in terms of presentation and journalism. It's just that on ITV, they have pompous c*nts like Alistair Stewart, Mark Austin and Nicholas Owen, and some daft bint with a silly name (Nanu Nanu or something).

Sparky

wow the amount of ****e people have said in this thread

and bbc n24 ftw, sky news is ok, but i hardly watch it tbh