ITV to halve team of regional MDs

The move is the latest step in the broadcaster's regional rationalisation, and comes just six weeks after Broadcast revealed it had axed all of its regional affairs staff.

According to a well-placed source, ITV currently has 11 regional managing directors, including one for Wales who is expected to remain in place. The remaining 10 will fight it out for five new positions, each covering an enlarged region. They will also only be responsible for news, rather than all regional operations.

“This is a lesser job across two sites. It is part of the total emasculation of ITV's regional network,” the source said.

“The managing directors used to be responsible for everything going on at their site, but their new remit will purely be a regional news remit.”

ITV is believed to be phasing in the changes over a number of months and is then expected to significantly reduce its number of regional news staff.

ITV declined to comment, but said in February: “Our corporate and public affairs departments are undergoing a broader restructure.”

The plans were outlined by executive chairman Michael Grade in September 2007, when he announced that ITV would cut its regional news budget by a third (£40m) and plough the savings back into in-house programme production.

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