LONDON (Brand Republic) - News Corporation’s BSkyB has stepped up its campaign to snatch the £45m-a-year contract to supply ITV with news from ITN by joining a five-member consortium.
BSkyB, which pitched for the ITV business in 1996 through subsidiary Sky News, joins US broadcaster CBS, financial news provider Bloomberg and UK media companies Chrysalis Group and Ulster TV in the consortium. Each member has an equal stake in the company being established to compete for the ITV business.
The group has already approached ITV regulator the Independent Television Commission about becoming a recognised news provider under the 1996 Broadcasting Act. The legislation states that no single company can own more than 20% of ITV’s news provider.
ITN’s shareholders are Granada Media, Carlton Communications, Reuters, United Business Media (formerly United News & Media) and Daily Mail & General Trust. Its contract with ITV expires at the end of 2002.
The consortium has already approached ITV detailing its proposals. BSkyB has failed in recent attempts to win the Channel 4 and Channel 5 contracts from ITN.
The unveiling of the new consortium was announced yesterday, the day after ITN’s nightly news programme on ITV returned to its former 10pm slot for the first time in more than a year, following a 14% decline in viewing figures.
ITN’s News at Ten, which is battling against the BBC’s rescheduled Ten O’Clock News programme, drew 8.1m viewers against the BBC’s 4.4m on its first night back.
Meanwhile, ITN is collaborating with outdoor poster advertising group Maiden Outdoor to provide news and advertising on screens at rail stations in the UK.
The first, at London Victoria, is a five by three metre screen mounted on the indicator board where train departures are listed. They provide cinematic quality images with moving headlines and text that explain the stories. The news, which appears in eight-minute programmes, is broken up with advertising.
The companies aim to provide the service at all major London rail stations within 18 months and at all major UK provincial stations within two years, according to David Pugh, managing director of Maiden Outdoor.
Maiden has the exclusive advertising franchise with Railtrack.