ITV News Channel to close on Friday 23 December

British commercial broadcaster ITV has announced that its ITV News Channel will close on Friday, a month sooner than originally planned.

ITV says it has brought forward the closure date following talks with ITV News Channel staff and suppliers.

"Staff and management of the channel have agreed that we could not expect the News Channel's dedicated staff to work their usual long hours and shift patterns over Christmas at a time when the channel's closure is imminent," said the ITV news and regions chief executive, Clive Jones.

"Following ITV's announcement last week of a £2m investment in other areas of ITV's news service we will be looking at the opportunities created by the expansion of our newsgathering operation to redeploy as many staff as possible in the new year."

Source: Media Network