Hard-pressed ITN to abolish 100 jobs

Up to 133 jobs are being scrapped at ITN as the company switches to digital technology and absorbs the impact of reducing the price it charges ITV to provide news.

The redundancies will hit management, production workers and journalists, but an ITN spokesman said it was determined to protect its "front-line" journalism. ITN had to cut the value of its contract to provide ITV news programmes from £45m to £36m to fend off a rival bid from a consortium of broadcasters, which included BSkyB.

The spokesman said the reduced price was one of "a number of factors" behind the job losses, which included "the UK media recession" and "the increasingly competitive environment in which the company operates".

But he added that the move to a fully digital operation would help ITN to maintain the high quality of its broadcast news services while reducing production costs.

The spokesman said: "A maximum of 133 jobs will be lost as a result, although this figure could be reduced to 80, depending on the outcome of negotiations for new broadcast news contracts.

"The company has pursued a strategy to protect its front-line journalism and only 10 journalists will lose their jobs at ITV News out of an ITV newsroom of 130," he said.

The spokesman said the job losses would not weaken ITN's commitment to foreign news and the role of foreign editor would be expanded to take in the wider responsibilities of managing editor.

Formal consultations with staff would begin next week and voluntary redundancy would be available to staff until 10 December. ITN pledged to take a "proactive role" in finding jobs for the "high-quality staff who will be leaving the company".

A spokesman for the National Union of Journalists said it had written to the independent television watchdog, the ITC, to request an urgent meeting about the lay-offs. "The prospect of a Christmas of ill will is looming large," he said.