And finally... Is this the end of the ITV News Channel?
ITV News hours cut on Freeview for ITV4
I'm sure you were all glued to the set last night for the launch of ITV Bore, sorry ITV4.
But spare a little thought for the old ITV News Channel. For the last few weeks it's been living on the knife edge. You see, ITV have space for five channels on Freeview. And it had five. ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV News Channel and the final remnant of Granada Sky Broadcasting, Men and Motors.
ITV4 was originally penciled in to replace Men and Motors - they're both aimed at a male audience; it made sense.
Except that there was a snag. After it launched on Freeview, Men and Motors suddenly started looking like it was about to make money. And of course, for ITV this is a good thing.
Poor old ITV News Channel, well that was a different matter. It doesn't make money - just costs it. Its ratings are, to be frank, pretty poor, and it drains cash.
So if you had the choice of which channel to drop - a loss making news channel or a close-to-profit 'Mens' channel, which would you chose?
Well that's your decision. And ITVs? Well actually their response was to fudge the issue. They put ITV News Channel on a time share with ITV4 - for 12 hours during daylight we'd get news, for 12 hours during the dark, ITV4. It's a wonderful fudge, just as long as you don't wish to watch the news after 6pm.
There's just one snag. Some point next year, ITV is launching ITV Kids. The plan was to put it in the downtime of ITV4 - the exact slot that ITV News Channel is now taking up. They're just delaying the inevitable. Cos at some point, something will have to give.
Of course there's always the possibility that the mux operators try and squeeze some more channels - if you reduce the picture quality enough, you could probably crowbar another two channels in. But last time that happened, prices were around £5m. Is it really worth the cost for a loss making news channel?
Now of course, this is all about the ITV News Channel on Freeview. It carries on happily on cable and satellite, and could in theory do so for years. Alas, there is another threat to it - by far the majority of its viewers are on Freeview. Take Freeview away, you reduce your revenue and you lose a huge chunk of your audience.
For ITN and its staff who work at the News Channel, these are without doubt, worrying times. The decision to cut back the News Channels hours this week, could be the first step in its destruction.
