The ITV News Channel is no longer broadcasting

Lots of annoyingly misguided opinions about the ITV News Channel's demise here
http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?t=320002
Apparantly if they'd brought in a boss from Sky News everything would have been ok!

I should have said that that was what appeared on Freeview. However, Charlie cleared that up half an hour after me

I thought it was the lack of viewers and the timeshare with itv4?

That and the lack of money generated made it easy for them which channel to drop...

I know it does seem pointless having M&M and ITV4 both targetting the same audience, why not merge the two and keep ITV NC in its place with CiTV/M&M ITV 4 broadcasting on one freeview slot?

I know capacity wasn't the reason it shut but they could have easily come over any capacity issues by making a few sacrifices.

Even though ITV News (and ITVNC) has got a battering from people on TVF over the years, I am glad that most people have left positive comments about the demise of this channel.

I will most certainly miss it!

Caught a little bit of it today. Alastair seemed genuinely sad to say goodbye. Nice creativity with the cameras going on.

And good of them to bother doing a closing programme with interviews and full length clips of the start of ITN/ITV NC (so many shows these days have short clips with some nonentity talking over it). Quite frank as well regarding the lack of resources and how it was unable to pull the same punches as Sky/N24.

Reminds me of this though.


David Mannion, January 2004

Mind you, as I said the other week - I knew they'd be cut off during an advert break. You'd have thought one wouldn't have been scheduled or would have been cancelled right at the end. Either that or back time it right.

Many thanks for everyone for the vids/captures.

This is ITV we are talking about. They are a business, and like commercial radio stations are out to make money from advertising [none of it was any good, mind; all crap like loans, ambulance chasing services, heartstring pulling charity ads etc] and as they are a PLC, to get the best return they can for their shareholders.

Their news channel operation was losing them millions per year so the only eventual option was to close it. They tried and they failed to ovetake Sky and the BBC, but they gave it their best shot.

Personaly, I found that the ITV News Channel was as good at Sky/N24. Whilst I am no news buff and don't sit around watching news channels all day, I found they were quite alright given the limited resources which they had.

I will miss the ITV News Channel as I have always liked ITN's news style. It makes you wander what ITV are playing at though when they said they putting more money into news than Sky. Maybe the ITV 1 bulletins will be improved?

I don't think it was covered, who did present today from 1.15pm to 3pm?

Faye Barker

Faye Barker solo.