ITN would consider news channel partnership

ITN chief executive Mark Wood has said the news operation wouldn't rule out supplying news for a 24-hour TV news channel, if approached by another broadcaster.

ITN previously produced the content for the ITV News Channel, formerly the ITN News Channel, which closed in December 2005.

Recently there has been speculation that cable group Virgin Media is considering launching its own news channel to rival Sky News and BBC News 24, with some reports suggesting it may look to partner with a news producer such as ITN.

Speaking to DS, Wood said that compared to when ITV News launched, the market was "a very different place," and pointed to the success of its 24-hour mobile channel ITN On to indicate how such a service could operate commercially.

"Things are different now; things that would have cost so much more in the past are much easier to do now. So yes, we would consider it," Wood added.

As well as ITN On, ITN currently provides TV news for ITV and Channel 4, and radio news for the Independent Radio News network and Channel 4 Radio. It also produces video news content for a number of partners including The Telegraph and Google.

The independent news producer has launched a new version of online video archive ITN Source this month, giving users the opportunity to search, view, download and buy video clips from 800,000 hours of footage from collections including Pathe and Reuters.