ITN's station was a latecomer to the 24-hour news market and in its two-year history it is understood to have lost as much as £30m.
The station failed to capitalise on the war in Afghanistan, as viewers turned to watch events unfold on its rolling-news rivals. ITN pulled in only 169,000 viewers on September 11 compared with 378,000 who watched BBC News 24. Sky News was the clear winner, with almost 1m viewers watching the channel.
ITN has already closed its rolling-news website to concentrate on its television news service.
The closure comes as ITN was forced to cut the amount it charges ITV for news in the face of stiff competition from the Sky-backed Channel 3 consortium.
Channel 3 News tried to undercut ITN by a considerable margin, which resulted in ITN having to rethink its bid price to around £33m, down £13m from its initial bid of £46m.
ITN had been charging more than £40m a year to supply ITV1 with news, until Channel 3 News said it could do it for £30m a year. The challenger also accused ITN of using the ITV money to subsidise ventures in new markets it was trying to break into.
It is understood that pressure to close the business came from ITN shareholders United Business Media and Daily Mail & General Trust, both of which will likely exit the business next year when legislation changes to allow individual shareholders to own more than 20% of the company.
Their stakes will likely go to the other three shareholders -- Carlton, Granada and Reuters.
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