Goodbye to ITN

My point was that in terms of reputation and respect, ITN's reputation is being damaged by having to produce news for ITV - there can be no doubt about that whatsoever.
However, their reputation is being strengthened by providing news for Channel 4.
Undoubtably ITN would chose ITV over C4 - simply because of the money issue. But my point was that it would damage ITN's reputation if they lost Channel 4 News, because for people with a brain, Channel 4 News is a hell of a lot better than the dross ITV are putting out at the moment, and credit goes to ITN for producing it.
I'm not sure ITV News is the most watched news service, I will check the viewing figures.
Yes, they get higher News at Ten viewers - but not by a great deal.
The main evening news programme for the Uk is the BBC Six O'clock News, not the ITV Evening News.
In the UK, BBC News as a whole gets a far far greater audience than ITN. Mainly because they operate more outlets.

ITN is no longer exclusive to ITV, but it wasn't exclusive to ITV in 1984 and even less so in 1997, why change now?
It is simply because ITV want to be one big company. Like the Beeb.
But the fact is, since Dacre has been in control, news on ITV has gone down the drain. And no matter which company owns the contract - as long as that pratt is still in control, nothing with change.

How exactly has the news content on itv got worse? The BBC NEWS has certainly got better as they are refining their different programmes to different audiences - if you listen to what just the BBC say you would believe that what itv produce is tabloid television (go to america and watch eyewitness news or whatever they call it you will see what tabloid news is like) itn are just providing news under the context of what itv do best - provide populist programming for all - yes news at ten is not what it was 5 years ago but commercial tv has changed since then and there would be no point in doing the same thing as the bbc do at the same time - its only because of the itc that they had to move it from 11pm which should now be reinstated because 1 news at 10 is fine - give it to the bbc.

Already, ITV1 night-time refers to going over to the 'ITV News Centre' instead of going over to 'ITN'.

If ITN do lose their contract with ITV, does it mean that they will have to move out of the ITV Network Centre (from which all of ITN's output is generated?) It could be a bitter blow for them, both logistically as well as financially. I would imagine they currently have favourable rent terms from ITV Network at the moment too. Losing their chief source of revenue AND your HQ could finish them off. Or merge with a rival firm. I can see it now - World News from MSITNBC !!!

You've answered your own question there.
The news on ITV has 'dumbed down' - that's a fact.
ITN on ITV used to be a pioneer, the 'in-vision' newsreaders, two newsreaders etc. In just one year of being on air ITN (with no interference from this 'ITV Network') had overtaken the BBC for news.
Sadly, now Dacre has been brought in the programme has dumbed down.
In a British news environment, ITV/N do produce tabloid television news.
Yes, the US TV networks have never had a clue about producing a programme with primarily news in it, however, we do not live in the US and hence I would not expect to find the same standards of broadcasting over here as can be found over there.

Until Network Centre decided that they wanted some branding and control over the style of news on ITV, ITN was doing well for itself.
The 5.40 was a decent enough news programme, and News at Ten was seen around the world as probably one of the best and most well established broadcasting institutions - the BBC even said that themselves when ITV pulled the plug on it.

ITV Network Centre is not in the same place as ITN HQ.
The ITV NC is near to Canary Wharf IIRC, whereas ITN occupies the old HQ of The Times, in Central London.

Couldn't ITV just create their own news division? Why do they even have to use ITN. ITV isn't the poorest company in the world, they could certainly finance a smallish news organisation. They could work out agreements with CNN for international news or whatever.

I could be wrong of course -- is it a law that ITV have to use an outside company for it's news programming?

Believe it or not, ITN did originally only do ITV news - hence the name Independent Television News. Like Teletext, their franchise was originally safe (Oracle wasn't threatened until 1992 - replaced by Teletext in 1993, ITN now has the same problem as Oracle), but they are now no more a part of ITV than UTV!

Err... ITN are still partially owned by a number of ITV companies are they not? So although not an ITV franchise, they are still quite closely related to ITV.

(I guess UTV probably haven't retained their shares though - as they are part of the rival bid)

I believe that ITV are likely to announce their decision on their news supply contract by the end of the month. Certainly watching the ITV Evening News at 6.30 it has become significantly more ITV-centric - less politics and foreign news, more UK news and celebrity stuff.

(Amazingly they didn't even headline the dissolution of the Northern Ireland Assembly recently...)

ITN's name is still on terrestrial for now, but only cos their own channel now provides a simulcast with Ch5 for the breakfast news (after c5 stopped having a 5News breakfast show)

Still used anywhere it ever was!

When the ITV Evening News first started it was very much like the old News at Ten, reasonably in-depth, analysing one of the main stories of the day in detail (remember when Sir Trevor used to stand up after the break?) and it also included the famous 'ITN Special Report'.

This has all changed now, and it seems to be getting shorter. The inclusion of a short regional news in the ITV Lunchtime News was a very sneaky way of getting rid of 10 mins of national news without disputing the schedules (by the way, that's all Border have at lunchtime, many regions have a half hour bulletin a 1pm, why don't they???).

Traditions have sadly gone out the window on ITV in the past few years, and they have gone too far in my opinion.

It has always been the ITN News at ...! Independent Television News was, is and always has been news provided especially for Independent Television.

Now ITV are really been crafty, because they don't want to mention the word ITN during the course of their bulletins. That's why they have renamed the programme the itv News at...! But it still another way of saying Independent Television News, and that keeps ITN happy in a sneaky way. It's also unfair on Channel 4 and 5 who have no mention of ITN in any form on their news programmes. For fairness ITV should be forced by the government to rename the news, The News On ITV At...!

But it's confusing everybody by thinking it's the news department of ITV when it's clearly not the case. ITN is just a contractor of ITV like Scottish, Grampian, Tyne Tees etc, as shown on the slides at the end of the programmes.

But when you are so used to the famous jingles and idents before programmes begin, and hearing 'The News From ITN', and suddenly Granada and Carlton as owners of ITV suddenly get rid of all of that just for maximising as much profit as they can from advertising, it's really soul destroying.