Channel 5 in the UK has made an early exit from its news coverage deal with satcaster BSkyB and signed a new one with ITN.
ITN produced Channel 5’s news programmes from its launch in 1997 through to 2005, when C5 signed up with Sky. That deal, reportedly worth£9m (US$14.3m) a year, had been due to run until December 2012.
Media mogul Richard Desmond took over C5 last year and his company, Northern and Shell, has now negotiated its way out of the Sky deal and agreed a cheaper one with ITN that will take effect early next year.
Early evening celebrity news programme OK! TV, also produced by Sky, will be axed from mid-December as part of the change.
ITN will produce C5’s news output at the channel’s London headquarters for the next three years, using the existing team that produces 5 News.
A new editor will be appointed shortly, following David Kermode’s announcement in September that he will be moving to ITV’s breakfast magazine show Daybreak.
C5 has already been working with ITN Productions on ob doc series Fairground Attractions, fast-turnaround doc Tsunami: British Search and Rescue and entertainment news bulletins for its diginets 5* and 5USA.
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