ITN

ITN (Independent Television News) is a British-based news and content provider. It is made up of four key businesses: ITN News, ITN Source, ITN Productions and ITN Consulting. The ITN logotype can be displayed in any of 4 different colours, each of which represents a business unit. ITN is based in London, with bureaux and offices in Beijing, Brussels, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, New York, Paris, Sydney and Washington DC.

ITN produces content for ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, UK mobile phone operators, online outlets such as YouTube, MSN, Telegraph Media Group, Yahoo!, and film producers and researchers worldwide.

History
ITN was founded in 1955 as part of the new British commercial television network, referred to as "Independent Television" (later ITV), by the Independent Television Authority. It began as a consortium of the initial ITV broadcasting companies, with former Labour MP Aidan Crawley as editor-in-chief. One of those companies, the London weekday contract-holder Associated-Rediffusion offered the new company studio space in its headquarters in Aldwych, London. The first ITN bulletin was presented by champion athlete Christopher Chataway. Geoffrey Cox joined as News Editor in 1956 after Crowley resigned, and he hired interviewers such as Robin Day. As ITV expanded, each ITV company that made up the network's federal structure had to purchase a stake in ITN and to continue to finance the company.

ITN has provided the main national news bulletins for ITV since 1955. News was always branded as ITN until 1999 when the Carlton and Granada partnership which were important stakeholders renamed it simply as ITV News. From this point, the name ITN was gradually phased out and it now appears only in the end production caption. Even though national coverage is produced by ITN, it has no role in the regional coverage provided for each individual ITV region's newsroom with the exception of ITV London, which it has run since March 2004 following its acquisition of the London News Network, a company previously owned by the now merged Carlton and Granada. With the launch of Britain's second commercial station Channel 4 in 1982, ITN was given the job of providing Channel 4 News.

Until the 1990s, ITN had a guaranteed right and obligation to provide news for ITV and Channel 4. Since the Broadcasting Act 1990, ITN has had to apply and bid for a licence to provide such services on these networks and would have to fight competition in order to preserve its services, as had become the case with other ITV franchisees. In August 2000, the organisation launched its own 24-hour news channel in the UK, broadcast on satellite, cable and digital terrestrial. It was 50% owned by ITN and 50% owned by NTL. Carlton and Granada gradually bought out the two stakes and renamed the channel the ITV News Channel.

The biggest challenge came in 2001 when British Sky Broadcasting bid to supply network news to ITV as part of a consortium. ITN eventually succeeded and was awarded a contract extension to 2008. In January 2005 Sky News took over supplying bulletins to Channel 5; ITN had produced 5 News since its launch in 1997 and the contract was returned in February 2012, following a change of ownership at Channel 5. Also in 2005, ITN started producing The Queen's speech to the Commonwealth at Christmas once every two years, so that, for the first time since the inception of Independent Television in 1955, ITN produced a programme for its rival the BBC.

The ITV News Channel closed down on 23 December 2005. Poor ratings in comparison to BBC News 24 and Sky News, and ITV's desire to re-use the channel's allocation on Freeview, were cited as the reasons.

John Hardie is the Chief Executive Officer of ITN, a position he took up in June 2009. Prior to this, he was Executive VP and MD of Walt Disney Television EMEA.

ITN (ITV News)
ITN's first bulletin aired on 22 September 1955, the day commercial television was born in the UK. ITN began its own World News bulletins in the late 1980s, which were shown around the world on local television channels, particularly on PBS stations in the US, where presenter Daljit Dhaliwal (now with Al-Jazeera English) enjoyed cult status.

These were discontinued in 2001, in the face of competition from dedicated news channels such as BBC World (now known as BBC World News), although it still provides footage to CNN International and reports often appear on PBS NewsHour. Its ITV Evening News bulletin was shown on the Newsworld International cable channel in the US.

In the 1990s, under new ownership, it was accused of abandoning its previous news style, which was broadsheet in style to mid-market tabloid with news stories that focused on personalities in the news rather than heavy news coverage.

The change in style matched changes in the nature of news coverage on the ITV Network (which has seen the network and ITN accused of dumbing down its style), which saw the axing of the long-running and award winning World in Action current affairs and investigative journalism news programme in 1998.

ITN's most famous news programme, News at Ten was also controversially replaced by an 11pm news bulletin in 1999, in order to allow ITV to broadcast films without the interruption of a 10 o'clock news bulletin. News at Ten was subsequently re-instated in 2001 after heavy public criticism over the change.

The restored News at Ten, was however, 10 minutes shorter than its predecessor and carried less in-depth news coverage. It also was broadcast at a later time at least 1 day a week, which meant it was often referred to as News at When?.

Since March 1999, the name ITN and its logo no longer features in the opening credits of the organisation's bulletins, with the term ITV News assuming prominence instead. The ITN name is now only seen at the end of bulletins.

There was increasing speculation that News at Ten was once again moved permanently, after under-performing against the Ten O'Clock News on BBC One which is broadcast every day at 10:00pm. In October 2003, the Independent Television Commission gave ITV approval to move News at Ten.

The ITV News at 10.30 launched on ITV on 2 February 2004 (the day that ITV in England, Wales and Southern Scotland came under the ownership of a single company) and was presented by Sir Trevor McDonald. The programme was longer than its predecessor and carried an integrated regional bulletin.

ITV News editors say that they are aiming at a more upmarket audience and the new programme carries a nightly sports roundup, more business stories and a preview of the next day's newspapers. Mark Austin took over main presenting duties on 16 January 2006.

The rebranded programme again saw new titles, this time featuring people walking over the face of Big Ben and has lately followed a more "sensationalist" approach to its main headlines. When ITV Executive Chairman Michael Grade joined ITV, he made it clear that he saw news as the key in defining any channel.

It was no surprise to see News at Ten returning to ITV on 14 January 2008 anchored by Sir Trevor McDonald and Julie Etchingham.

Similarly, ITN's 24-hour news channel (launched some distance behind the wake of Sky News and BBC News 24) was jointly bought by the main ITV companies Carlton and Granada and subsequently renamed and re-branded as the ITV News Channel.

In March 2004, ITN took over production of ITV London's regional news programmes, which relocated from The London Television Centre on the South Bank to ITN's Gray's Inn Road base.

ITN used to operate a radio news service on behalf of IRN Independent Radio News but on 15 October 2008, IRN announced that Sky News Radio was to replace ITN as its main supplier from March 2009.

Between 1996 and 2002, it also owned a share of London News Radio, which was based at ITN's Gray's Inn Road HQ and operated the LBC and News Direct London radio stations.

Channel 4 News
ITN is also home to Channel 4 News, producing the programme since the channel's inception in 1982.

Channel 4 News flagship programme is 55 minutes of in-depth news and current affairs broadcast at 7pm each weekday and at 6.30pm on Saturdays and Sundays. The weekday evening programme is anchored by Jon Snow, whereas Krishnan Guru-Murthy presents the weekend bulletins.

A five-minute long news summary goes out Monday to Friday at midday. The bulletin replaced Channel 4's defunct half hour News at Noon programme in late 2009, six years after its launch during the Iraq War of 2003.

In December 2009 Channel 4 also axed More4 News, which originally aired weekdays at 8pm on its sister channel More4.

ITN created More4 News when the digital channel was launched in October 2005. It was originally presented by Sarah Smith; Kylie Morris took over presenting duties in June 2007 and Smith was posted to the US as Channel 4 News' Washington correspondent.

5 News
From the launch of Channel 5 in 1997, ITN provided the news bulletins for 5 News. However in January 2005, ITN lost the contract, which was awarded to Sky News. In 2011 ITN regained the contract in a three year deal to provide news for Channel 5 from early 2012, but on a much reduced budget. The deal followed an agreement by Sky and Northern & Shell, which owns Channel 5, to terminate the 5 News contract early.

Setanta Sports News
Setanta Sports News was a 24-hour sports news television channel produced by ITN and jointly owned by Virgin Media Television and Setanta Sports, launched on 29 November 2007. The channel ceased broadcasting on 23 June 2009, when Setanta's UK operation were placed into administration, following financial difficulties.

ITN Source
ITN Source (formerly ITN Archive) is one of the world’s largest commercial providers of video footage, with access to over one million hours of content from 1896 to present day, including news, drama, celebrity, comedy, music, wildlife, natural history and film.

ITN Source also syndicates on-the-day news footage generated by ITN to the world's leading broadcasters and producers through ITN Source News ITN Source represents the world’s largest collection of moving image libraries including Reuters, ITV, ANI, UTV, Fox News, Fox Movietone, Nine Network and other specialist collections.

ITN Source relaunched its website itnsource.com in September 2008. The site now allows customers to licence and download broadcast quality video directly to their desktop.

In 2005, ITN became a shareholder in Espresso Group. Espresso is the leading provider of digital content to primary schools in the UK with its service now running in 60% of English primary schools.

It features an extensive library of high quality, video rich broadband teaching resources and student activities that motivates pupils and supports teachers. Much of the content used in the service is from ITN Source.

In May 2008, ITN Source created the Education Clip Library a unique, video licensing service for educational publishers and broadcasters around the world. The Education Clip Library is aimed at educational publishers and broadcasters seeking to add video to their instructional products and services.

In October 2008, ITN Source announced the creation of Diagonal View a joint venture with Matt Heiman, a digital entrepreneur.

Diagonal View packages quirky and unique content from ITN Source’s vast archive and syndicates it to a range of commercial partners including MySpace, YouTube and MSN. Diagonal View is already one of the top 5 most watched channels of all time on MySpace.

With headquarters in London, ITN Source has sales offices in New York, Canada, Paris, Johannesburg, Sydney and Tokyo.

ITN Consulting
ITN Consulting is the management consultancy arm of ITN, combining the resources of ITN with the consulting team’s experience to advise global media companies on issues spanning all areas of strategy and operations, including financial planning, marketing, scheduling and content, recruitment, and interim management.

With its partner, Venture Consulting, it has offices in London, Milan, Dubai, Singapore and Sydney. It operates as a network with its consultants working on engagements globally.

ITN Consulting's focus is "on how strategy can be implemented to deliver to real change". They state that an understanding of how global, regional and local media markets conflict and come together enables them to identify the opportunities this creates. They take both an external, outsider perspective as well as having the viewpoint of senior "insider" media executives.

Recently, ITN Consulting has been extensively involved in the development of television business plans for local TV in the UK. It has also consulted a range of national broadcasters on improving news services.

ITN Productions
ITN Productions was formed in February 2010 and incorporates the non-news operations of ITN, including the former ITN On, ITN Factual and ITN's corporate production arm.

ITN On sits under the ITN Productions banner and came into being in 2003, providing the first news bulletins for third generation (3G) mobile phone operator 3.

It has since expanded its video news service providing content to the UK's leading mobile operators including Vodafone Live!, T-Mobile and Orange. ITN On also provides content to handset manufacturers such as Nokia's Ovi store.

ITN Productions offers a range of news and entertainment and lifestyle content to broadband operators including MSN, YouTube, Yahoo, Daily Mail, Bauer Media, Express Group and Imagine Fashion amongst others. ITN Productions also produces bespoke programming for Telegraph's website. It also produces "The Fix", a daily celebrity bulletin for the UK's biggest music channel, 4Music, as well as delivering a daily tea-time programme to Shanghai's biggest English-speaking channel.

Since becoming a partner in the Education Digital 2 Consortium, alongside Brook Lapping/Ten Alps, ITN On produced Teachers TV News. This included daily video news updates online as well as a bi-weekly 15-minute programme presented by Charlotte Hume. Teachers TV has since been withdrawn as a TV channel, remaining online only, and the news programme also ended.

The department previously known as ITN Factual sits under the ITN Productions brand and has creates programming for international broadcasters, including all the UK's main broadcasters as well as Discovery Channel, A&E TV Networks, PBS and National Geographic Channel.

Ownership
From its inception in 1955, ITN was originally owned jointly by all the ITV operating companies, the shares split roughly in proportion to each company's advertising income. However the 1990 Broadcasting Act limited the ITV companies to a maximum joint 49% stake, with no single company allowed more than a 20% holding. These requirements were abolished by the Communications Act 2003.

As of 2012, ITN is owned by ITV plc (40%), Daily Mail and General Trust (20%), Thomson Reuters (20%) and UBM plc (20%). ITV plc's shareholding forms part of the wider ITV News Group, incorporating their regional operations in England and Wales, plus ITV Sport. The Director of the ITV News Group is Michael Jermey, a former editor and executive at ITN.

ITV's ownership of 40% of ITN (at that time equally split between Carlton and Granada) made the 2001 bid from Sky for ITV bulletins unlikely to succeed, the network having a vested interest to see ITN continue. The ITN contract for ITV News expires at the end of 2012. On 2 April 2007 ITN signed a deal which superseded the existing contract, worth at least £42m per year. ITV, which owns 40% of ITN, is investing more than £15m to upgrade ITN's newsroom as part of the deal.

Parodies
ITN has been spoofed several times on ITV's The Benny Hill Show, namely in one 1971 show with the logo reading "NIT" instead of "ITN" and with Benny Hill as Reginald Boozenquet and Andrew Gardner.

ITN was also spoofed in 1978 in the Leprechaun Independent Television sketch with Benny as Angela O'Rippon, a parody of Angela Rippon, and again with Benny as Ann Afford, a parody of Anna Ford. It was also spoofed in a black and white 1971 show and a 1973 episode.

In the 2008 video game Saints Row 2, the news broadcast on the radio opens and closes with the same theme tune as ITN. This is also true for the 2009 video game Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time.