ITN boss quits
- Published: 29 September 2008 17:03
- Author: Kate McMahon
- More by this Author
- Last Updated: 29 September 2008 17:03
- Reader Responses
Mark Wood, chief executive of ITN, is to step down from the news broadcaster early next year to "pursue opportunities outside the company".
Wood, has been ITN chief executive since June 2003 and chairman since July 1998 and will remain in his dual role for an undisclosed period of time.
Wood said ITN now has "a dynamism, creativity and momentum which will ensure it achieves sustained growth and profitability in the future".
"I am proud that ITN is now flourishing as a diversified multi-media company while still delivering truly outstanding news programming to its network customers," he said.
"We have built a world-leading video clips business in ITNSource and now compete head-on the leaders in the in the motion imagery market. In the past year alone, ITN has also launched the 24-hour Setanta Sports news channel, rolled out an e-commerce video service for global education markets and created an archive clips channel which is a top traffic driver on MySpace and YouTube."
A spokesman for ITN's shareholders, which include ITV plc, Daily Mail and General Trust, Thomson Reuters and United Business Media, said: "ITN's new businesses are achieving double-digit growth this year and Mark has put in place a strong new commercial team which has shown it can sustain this pace.
"We intend to build on those successes and give every support to continuing a strategy aimed at growing profitable areas of business and creating shareholder value."
Before joining ITV, Wood was editor-in-chief of Reuters in charge of the company's worldwide news and television operations, before taking charge of Reuters strategic media investments and alliances in 2000.
He later was managing director of Reuters Content Partners, responsible for Reuters' strategic media investments.
