ITV have announced that they will be cutting 400 jobs in their regional newscentres and may even hand over their local news responsibilities to another organisation.

Michael Grade, Chairman of ITV gave a speech at the Royal Television Society where he made these revelations. He was asked afterwards who may take over news output from ITV, Mr Grade named a number of candidates.

“You could get PA (the Press Association) to do it, you could get Reuters to do it, you could get Sky to do it,” he told reporters.

Mr Grade said ITV would prefer to remain a licensed PSB (public service broadcaster) “if justified economically”.

“It’s time for ITV to be left alone to operate as a business,” he added, saying the channel’s public service commitments would soon see some of its 15 licensees operating at a loss.

“At present we are subsidising the Scottish and Ulster licensees to the tune of more than £25m per annum,” he said.