History
The channel launched on 1 August 2000 as a joint venture between ITN and NTL as the "ITN News Channel". In June 2002, Carlton Television and Granada Television - the predecessors of ITV plc - bought out ITN's 65-per-cent stake. This led to a rebrand as the ITV News Channel in September 2002. In April 2004 the newly created ITV plc bought NTL's 35-per-cent stake to assume full control of the channel.
As the ITN News Channel, the channel was broadcast from a small studio with accommodation for only one presenter at a time. When relaunched as the ITV News Channel, it initially used the standard ITV News studio of the time, which was built for fixed length bulletins only, so the style of presentation was always more basic than that of its competitors.
From the February 2004 relaunch, the channel came into its own. Along with the rest of ITV News, the channel was presented from the so-called 'theatre of news' set, a large virtual studio allowing presentation either from behind a desk or by presenters walking around, using the news wall to explain a story with the aid of graphics. For the first time, two presenters could present the channel together, which the management viewed as an improvement.
As the channel shared facilities with ITV News bulletins on the ITV Network (which were also simulcast on the news channel), the channel had to move to other studios for around an hour before each ITV bulletin to allow for rehearsals. Initially a single locked-off camera studio was used at these times, which was very basic. Later the channel used a virtual reality studio at these times or, following ITN's takeover of the production of London Tonight, that studio.
News content and programming for the channel was provided by ITN.
Read more about this topic: ITV News Channel
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