ITV News Channel to close

The ITV News Channel is expected to close at the end of next month. Recently forced to broadcast for only 12 hours a day on Freeview to make room for ITV4, the channel was facing no carriage on Freeview at all from February when ITV plan to launch their new kids channel. The channel has also had to contend with being off-air for much of last year in various regions across the country and low ratings compared with BBC News 24 and the recently-relaunched Sky News.