REDUNDANCY CALL AT ITN FOLLOWS £11M CUT

ITN is facing up to 200 job cuts after its contracted news service was renewed for substantially less money by ITV.
Staff at the London-based company, which recently cut £11 million from the price of their news service provision to ITV, have been invited to volunteer for redundancy before December 10.
Managers at the company have not indicated the final target for job cuts, but BECTU and the NUJ have been warned to expect at least 100 redundancies, with as many as 200 being possible.
Union representatives have pledged to resist compulsory job cuts, after the announcement from ITN that costs would have to be cut. BECTU and the NUJ have called for details of the company's new contract with ITV before making any judgement about the level of redundancies that might be justified.
ITN won a new contract with ITV after a bidding war against a rival consortium which included BSkyB. Their bid offered a news service to ITV which was priced well below the rate previously charged, and union members at ITN are worried that quality of their newcasts will suffer.
BECTU are planning to hold meetings for members at ITN over the next two weeks. (CD)