ITN news channel to close

The sunday telelgraph is reporting that it will close to help save money

what will Channel 5 do for the mornings now?

broadcast it's own version of sh*te no doubt

http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/article/0,,9008-2001554896,00.html

I wonder how you go about ending a 24-hr News Channel?!

It comes up to midnight and they'll probably show a highlights package of their 2yr delayed- breaking news stories.

Cheers, Asa

Well whoever said it was going to close before was obviously right, There's no point in keeping it going if it's ratings are very low compared to Sky News & BBC NEWS 24 and it is not earning ITN any money. Perhaps they can now save money and use it on improvements to all their bullitins, maybe start having their bulletins on ITV1 as ITN News and not ITV News like they used to!http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/biggrin.gif

Hardly surprising.

The entire concept of the channel was a disaster. If ITN had bothered to research into CNN Headline News - which was what ITN Channel was based on - they'd have noticed that nobody would watch their channel. When they launched the news channel ITN said they 'relished a fight'. Well, they've lost the fight to their two main rivals.

You know, indirectly Sky have got what they wanted out of the entire Channel 3 News Vs ITN bid. They made ITN cut down drastically, have forced them to lose a hell of a lot of money, lose lots of jobs and close their news channel. What more could they have asked for? ITN said when they started their channel that Sky saw it as a threat and didn't want it opened, just as they wanted to close News 24 down - they don't anymore (apparently!). So Sky basically have got what what they wanted in forcing ITN to cost cut and thus close the News Channel.

I wonder if Sky will draw up plans to launch Sky Headline News (again) They did in around 1995 but it was mysteriously ruled out.

I'm not surprised, what would be the point, look what happened when SKY 2 was introduced to show repeats of stuff from SKY ONE, it didn't last very long at all and this is what would happen if SKY had a headline news and channel and SKY NEWS, it would fail and it would just take the **** out of ITN completely!http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/cheesy.gif

I don't think there's any need for channels like CNN Headline News anymore. Not now that we have interactive news services.

With regards to a Sky Headline News, I'm not sure whether that would fail or not. ITN really failed because it didn't have enough time to establish itself, whereas the Sky News brand is firmly established in 24 hour news.

It's becoming more difficult for these new channels to start up.

Adam Faith's 'Money Channel' lost money (ironic really) from the day it was launched. It had potential but could never be followed through with viewers. It's a shame, but it's predictable. Next news/info channel to go... well there won't be another going.
Sky certainly isn't going anywhere, the News 24 report will find that the channel - whilst not attracting as many viewers as its commercial competitor - is providing a high quality public service and is required to take BBC News into the digital era. Bloomberg, well I hardly think New York's new mayor is going to let one of his blessed little channels fail. CNBC Europe, that won't go anywhere because it's actually quite highly viewed across the continent. CNN, well I wish that would go somewhere but it won't. S4C2, government funded so unlikely to go anywhere fast. Euronews, this is the most likely to clear off. Who watches it?

Then we come to BBC Parliament. It's funded by the government so it shouldn't go anywhere but then again it's already been acknowledged by the BBC as 'a failure'.
BBC Parliament has the chance to be a great channel, a British C-SPAN. Political debates, coverage of important Commons events and Lords, of course. An interactive service allowing you to choose which chamber to watch, which debates etc. Phone in programmes, news updates from N24 in the phone ins, big interviews etc. The BBC just need to work harder on it and it might just pay off for them.


EDIT: Euronews won't go anywhere, even though it's not widely viewed in the UK; it's Europe's 3rd most popular channel and so won't close.

(Edited by c@t at 2:54 pm on Dec. 2, 2001)

EPG 878 (ITN Radio) will also go as well then, and presumably all the other platforms they have news on, digital raido, PDAs etc.

Who actually owns Newsdirect (the London radio station)? Presumably that's fairly safe. Anyone know how it fares in the RADAR figures? I always thought it would be far more sensible to have Newsdirect on the Sky EPG rather than a radio version of the ITN News Channel.

Its a bit of a shame really as in terms of presentation etc. it was a nice channel - if they'd had a decent amount of money they could have put up some decent competition to BBC + Sky, but ITN have always been in such a mess as a result of ITV when it first started everyone was already predicting failure.

As Asa says it'll be very interesting to see how they close it - can't see them going up to 23:59 on New Year's Eve somehow, I imagine it'll just slip away someday soon with little publicity outside the likes of Mediaguardian.

Don't lets forget a lot of people will probably lose their jobs as a result of this too.

William

This is utter rubbish I can't stress this enough!

It costs ITN VERY, VERY little to produce the newschannel as the presenters, tech staff, and the majority of the journalists all work on other ITN productions!

It will not close, it may be handed over to ITV and re named the ITV News Channel who knows, but trust me it won't close!

Well I don't think the concept of continual coverage of Parliament was ever going to be a ratings winner, but then BBC Parliament is really just a public service. Anyway, it's never promoted anywhere, and us digital terrestrial viewers don't even get to see the pictures!
That is something that really needs to get sorted, more important that sticking interactive stuff on it.

As far as the closure of the ITN News Channel, I'd like to see Andrew Harvey return to the BBC as I think he's one of the best newsreaders in the country and was wasted on his short stint at News 24 on the late night slots.

Andrew Harvey was a very irregular presenter because he was working as the main presenter on South Today at the same time. We get the best in the south!!!