The ITV News Channel is no longer broadcasting

The presenters made the ITV News Channel. Unlike other outlets they actually had personalities and often got the level of banter just right even if they'd never worked together before

The airing of regional ITV reports, particularly off peak was a good feature. I'm sure ITV's regional reporters were pleased when their report was also shown nationally on the News Channel. ITV's regional presenters also got a chance to present on the channel, plus there was UK Today as well which often featured banter between the likes of Mark Austin and Fred Dineage

Then there was the special shows. Live with Alistair Stewart will be the key one that is remembered and I'm sure its legacy will remain on shows that BBC News 24 and Sky News develop. The Scott Chisholm show would have developed the same reputation if it had been on air for more than 10 days!

Then there were the features nobody else did, like the ITV Travel Report/Travel Latest/Update from Trafficlink.

It's just a pitty that throughout its exsistance most people here ignored all that and just focused on the fact that it wasn't live overnight or cheap gags about the adverts being on all the time

Granted - but often failed because it was copying everyone else.

The "Live with" shows were well worth doing...but nothing more than a carbon copy of the Sky News Today format albeit on less of a scale.

As for banter - fine we all joke about it, but is lots of laughing really the right thing on a 24 hour rolling news channel.

As for things like Travel updates...WHY!? Nothing more than cheap fodder when they realised they were paying the money for ITV London's travel so might as well throw in a few travel updates which had no relevance to anyone...ever.

The loss of the ITV News Channel is sad...I for one will be sad to see it go, and indeed many people (in the industry) have said the same thing because they believed that when money and effort was there - the ITV News Channel could pull out all the stops.

But it was nothing more than a pain in the arse for ITV to maintain - as for ITN well they'll be gutted to see the channel go (as will IRN...who have relied heavily on the channel for the last year).

Additional....

This came down the IRN wires at around 5.30pm Monday:

"ATTN : PROGRAMME CONTROLLERS AND NEWS EDITORS
ITV has announced the News Channel will close at 18 00 this coming Friday , December 23 .

The flow of IRN audio to the network will be unaffected although clearly the News Channel will not be available for stations to " plug into " in the event of a major story .

Other options are being explored and we will keep you updated on any
developments .Apologies for the short notice - but the timetable was not of our making .


Kind regards
John Perkins
Managing Director , IRN"

How exactly?

Sky News Today (in it's former incarnation rather than the one we have now) was a fast-paced three hour news block whereas "Live With.." was all about set-piece interviews, news in depth etc. Can't really see how you can call that a carbon copy myself.

If anything, we are seeing Sky adopt some of the elements seen in the ITVNC's ATV programming, with Martin Stanford, Kay Burley, and Adam Boulton.

I agree to an extent - but Sky had said two years ago that ATV programmes would be a part of the schedule in the future.

In terms of a "carbon copy" - well not the best words...but Sky News Today would often cover stories in more depth...have a fair few set interviews to discuss the news, etc etc. Not hugely different than the beefing up that ITV decided to run with post relaunch last year.

true...but Alastair Stewart winning an award for his show probably didn't hurt in encouraging Sky to turn those plans into actual programmes.

Certainly the channel was the weakest of the three, but I'm not sure it can totallly be written off as an abject failure. It provided a bit of extra competition in the 24hr news market and that's no bad thing.

This may be a stupid question , but presumably ITV signed an agreement with SES/Astra for transponder capacity to broadcast ITVNC. Since the launch of ITV4 (and the soon to be CITV) has no effect on this, what are they going to do with this spare capacity?

Surely satellite transponders don't come cheap, and not using them to their full capacity is not very efficient. Considering closing ITV NC saves the paltry sum of £2M, surely this is going to get eaten up by existing contractual obligations they can't wriggle out of at short notice, such as the SES/Astra fee, and whatever they have already agreed to pay NTL/Telewest to carry ITVNC.

I could be barking (up the wrong tree) here of course

Not a stupid question at all!

Could ITV find another use for the News Channel's bandwidth? For instance are all the sub-regions now available on satellite?

Alternatively it's possible that ITV4's hours could be expanded on satellite and cable. On Freeview ITV4 and the forthcoming ITV Children's channel need to timeshare... but with extra capacity that doesn't need to be the case on Sky.

Obviously the BBC makes a point of resticting the hours of BBC3 and 4 and its children's channels to ensure it's offering the same standard of service on satellite and DTT. But there's no compulsion on ITV to do the same. If it's in ITV's commercial interests to expand ITV4's hours on satellite they'll do it - even if they can't follow suit on Freeview.

I think it's only the other Westcountry sub-regions that aren't on DSat now. South is the default (fortunately, since that's where I am) , but North/East/West only have 5 minute opts during main & late bulletins so it's probably not worth it.

I imagine they could only expland ITV4's hours by repeating the evening schedule during the day; and I don't think that would hit their target audience really.

I suppose they could always use it for some sort of interactive service......I know - shopping, or "Friends Reunited" Grrrr

Yorkshire South still isn't on Sky - only East and West so far.

Is Anglia North on Sky? I know Anglia South is, but I'm not even sure if there is an Anglia North? Its only advertisements anyway.

John

I'd put money on an ITV phone-in quiz channel.