Radio Mad
11th October 2002, 00:37
Maybe it’s just me, but I think it is quite sad to be witnessing the almost total demise of one of the most respected news organisations in the world, ITN. Its brand name has all but disappeared from our screens and has been replaced with that of ITV News. Indeed, the ITN News Channel has recently as this week been re-branded into the ITV News Channel.
ITN was established at the same time as ITV and has provided news to the network ever since.
It is also responsible for the excellent Channel 4 News, (Channel) 5 News, Euronews, the ITN/ITV News Channel and radio news in the UK. GMTV also source their news from ITN.
Just last year it fought off a serious contender in a consortium led by Sky to continue with its ITV contract. In order to secure the deal ITN had to bid over ten million pounds sterling per year less than hitherto had been the case. This meant them having to slash costs and reduce the number of staff on their payroll if they were to remain profitable. Quality, I feel, has taken its toll as a result. Bulletins are now more American-like (yuck!) and feature too many showbiz type stories. Still to their credit, they are still putting out a very reasonable news service that competes quite adequately with their main competitor, the BBC.
Whether it is ITN or ITV News might appear irrelevant to certain people, but I think it foolhardy on the part of all concerned to mess with a brand as strong as ITN – an organisation with a long and proud tradition of providing news coverage of the highest quality.
As I stated at the top, maybe it’s just me.
ITN was established at the same time as ITV and has provided news to the network ever since.
It is also responsible for the excellent Channel 4 News, (Channel) 5 News, Euronews, the ITN/ITV News Channel and radio news in the UK. GMTV also source their news from ITN.
Just last year it fought off a serious contender in a consortium led by Sky to continue with its ITV contract. In order to secure the deal ITN had to bid over ten million pounds sterling per year less than hitherto had been the case. This meant them having to slash costs and reduce the number of staff on their payroll if they were to remain profitable. Quality, I feel, has taken its toll as a result. Bulletins are now more American-like (yuck!) and feature too many showbiz type stories. Still to their credit, they are still putting out a very reasonable news service that competes quite adequately with their main competitor, the BBC.
Whether it is ITN or ITV News might appear irrelevant to certain people, but I think it foolhardy on the part of all concerned to mess with a brand as strong as ITN – an organisation with a long and proud tradition of providing news coverage of the highest quality.
As I stated at the top, maybe it’s just me.