The Newsroom

Doco on launch of ITN News Channel

(July 2017)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
CO
Connews
Blimey, that was a blast from the past. I'd forgotten so much about all this. I'd completely forgotten ITN had launched a digital radio version of the News Channel.

Sadly, it all ended in tears. ITN had missed the boat really when it came to 24-hour news and the whole thing was a great folly really. But a really interesting watch nonetheless.


Three players in the 24-hour news market was very likely too much, but I do think ITN were offering a great product that was distinctive from its rivals... a few years prematurely. Think of the wheel Sky News had for several years, for example.
PC
p_c_u_k
In all honesty, two players in the news channel business is too much for the UK - Sky goes along with Sky News for reputational reasons. The BBC has cut the news channels live distinctive hours hugely - it shares with BBC1, BBC2 and World for huge chunks of the day and night.

As CNN found, straight news is never going to be a huge money-spinner unless there's a massive story which runs over an extended period of time, such as the Gulf War. And at that point you need to spend more money covering the thing anyway.

The likes of Fox News etc presumably make cash by supplying highly polarised programming, but God help us all if the UK ever goes down that route.
WW
WW Update
In all honesty, two players in the news channel business is too much for the UK - Sky goes along with Sky News for reputational reasons. The BBC has cut the news channels live distinctive hours hugely - it shares with BBC1, BBC2 and World for huge chunks of the day and night.

As CNN found, straight news is never going to be a huge money-spinner unless there's a massive story which runs over an extended period of time, such as the Gulf War. And at that point you need to spend more money covering the thing anyway.

The likes of Fox News etc presumably make cash by supplying highly polarised programming, but God help us all if the UK ever goes down that route.


But then again, BFM TV in France is going from ratings success to rating success with its lively breaking-news-and-debate formula -- and beating many general-entertainment channels in the process.

My point, I suppose, is that there are many possible formats for a news channel and just because one doesn't work, it doesn't mean that another won't succeed.

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