ITV News launches new site in beta

ITV News has launched its new design in beta, ahead of the 2012 Budget announcement on Wednesday, which includes a new "rolling news timeline" which gives a live stream of breaking news.

The site redesign is "part of the wider transformation of ITV's news operation". ITV has been carrying out a review of its news division as part of the broadcaster's five-year Transformation Plan.

In a release ITV said the site has been "optimised for use on mobiles and tablets" and "aims to bring real-time rolling news to the public in a brand new slick and efficient digital product".

The company adds that its journalists in national and regional newspapers have been given "the tools they need to quickly and efficiently break news and update stories online from wherever they are based".

The new site will also highlight "conversations" occurring elsewhere online, such as via Twitter and other websites.

In a video on the website ITV News presenter Mark Austin explains that the live stream will include content on the latest stories, including text, videos, blog posts and photos. Austin adds that this can be changed to focus on a particular story by selecting one of the "top stories" from the left-hand menu, which then gives the user a summary of the story and latest developments available, including news stories, key quotes, facts and figures, video reports and blog posts.

"Our digital news service will give people a great new way to follow breaking news wherever they are," director of news and current affairs Michael Jermey added in the release.

"It will offer fantastic broadcast quality video and will cover not only the top national and international news of the day but will also provide a strong regional service."

Julian March, who joined ITV News & Sport as head of digital media last year, added: "ITV News is a vast 24 hour news gathering machine packed with breaking news content and exclusives from award winning journalists.

"We are therefore incredibly excited about creating a platform which allows us to begin to unleash the full power of that machine in the digital space. The new site is all about providing real-time news for the digital age and enabling our quality journalism to reach an even wider audience online and on demand."

In an interview with NewMediaAge, managing director of ITV Robin Pembrooke also said that the site "has been designed to extend to connected TVs further down the line" and will also look to introduce greater personalisation.

"Currently, users can access regional and local news via drop-down boxes, but this will be extended over time," NewMediaAge reports.

Responding to the new design on his Online Journalism blog, journalism professor Paul Bradshaw said the site "turns the concept of 'every page is a homepage' on its head, so that the homepage becomes 'every page'."

"There’s a confidence that the user is coming here because they want to know what 'the news' is, rather than because they are looking for something specific. And the page provides that in spades."

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