ITN Source has signed a deal to license material from Daybreak, Lorraine and the GMTV back catalogue in an extension of its existing representation of clips sales of ITV material.

Twenty years of interviews and content is now available to producers and organisations through ITN Source, the footage licensing division of ITN. Key moments include Prime Ministers David Cameron, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on the Daybreak and GMTV sofas, Hollywood A-listers, Eamonn Holmes' famously awkward interview with David Blaine, coverage of all of the big award ceremonies and live performances from Take That, Westlife and Amy Winehouse.

ITN Source has represented the ITV catalogue since 2003, and is currently working with ITV to identify key titles from the back catalogue to digitise and make available online so they can be previewed and purchased via the ITNSource.com portal.

Examples of the new ITV content available as a result of this announcement are online here and more information on the full range of ITV material available through ITN Source is here.

"ITV is an important partner for ITN Source as we've represented its catalogue since 2003 and are now in the process of enhancing it through digitisation," said Simon Wood, Head of UK Sales at ITN Source. "ITV content complements the extensive news archive material represented by ITN Source, and the addition of twenty years of memorable moments from ITV breakfast television to our portfolio will be a valuable resource for producers and those who license ITN and third-party content."

Biog: Andy Williams is Managing Director at ITN Source, overseeing all strategy, management, sales, editorial and operational development of the content licensing division of ITN. Andy joined ITN in 2010 from financial firm Primrose where he spent six years as Managing Director. Prior to this, he spent five years with IBM Business Consulting Services, selling and delivering large scale consulting projects to the media and communications industries. 

This time last year, The Channel published an article that I wrote about the challenges ITN had overcome to digitise its archive and where we saw the return on investment and new routes to market. Looking back over the last 12 months, the mantra that I used in last year's piece "digitise or be left on the shelf" couldn't seem to be more appropriate.

The development, production and consumption of a diverse range of digital content has continued to grow at an exponential rate, and the impact on the use of video across multiple platforms has been phenomenal. I'm sure that analysing these trends and gazing into a digital crystal ball will be front of mind at the Mobile World Congress and FT Digital Media Broadcasting Conferences happening in Barcelona and London this spring.

Specifically in my field of video archive footage, the routes to market for licensing material have increased significantly in recent years. Proliferation of digital is certainly a main driver, but there are other factors as well. A few years ago the vast majority of content licensing from a video archive such as those managed by ITN Source would have been in factual and history programming. Other TV genres such as drama would also feature some archive footage to depict real events or add a contemporaneous feel to the production - but these opportunities were generally limited and just a small part of our business.

Now, it seems that almost wherever you go, whatever you watch, there can be an element of archive footage incorporated. At ITN Source we license archive content on behalf of partners such as Reuters, ITV Studios and Fox Movietone as well as all 57 years of ITN footage, working with a wide range of clients outside of the TV landscape. For a start, there's the feature film industry - just take a look at a list of hit films from recent times - The King's Speech, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, The Iron Lady and even the latest instalment of Men in Black  - and you'll find that all had content supplied by ITN Source. In music, our footage has been used by the likes of Jay-Z and the Stereophonics in music videos. Elsewhere, Middle Eastern states have licensed archive video content for marquee heritage projects, universities and schools around the world use our material in e-learning platforms, blue chip companies license footage for corporate films, and even artists work with us for multi-media installations.

Beyond these developments, 'new' media is now an important growth area for archive. In the e-book market, Amazon has said that it sells twice as many e-books as paperbacks and hardbacks combined. Where it was once rare to see someone reading an e-book, it's now unusual not see at least one person on your daily commute with an e-book in hand. If someone is reading an e-book, regardless of whether it's fact or fiction, then there is almost certainly video content that can illustrate and complement the text.

To this end, ITN Source has recently licensed video clips of the Rolling Stones over the years to be embedded in an enhanced e-book of The Rolling Stones at 50 - the only officially authorised book to celebrate the milestone. Working with publisher Thames-Hudson, our footage of press conferences, an album launch party, an interview and of course the Stones on stage sits alongside fully interactive, illustrated pages. The inclusion of video offers a wealth of extra content to anyone who purchases this version of the book and reads it on iPad, iPad mini or Kindle Fire. This is just the first e-book licensing deal that ITN Source has signed, and we're expecting many more. There's no doubt it's a market in its infancy, and as we explore further, it's important that we work closely with publishers to ensure that any embedded video enhances the reading experience, not complicates or interrupts it. Creative execution and relevance of footage will be key.

Another area of new media of real interest is mobile apps. Usage of apps has exploded in the last couple of years as the proliferation of smartphones has been driven by new models, more platforms and better infrastructure such as 3G and wi-fi connectivity. OFCOM has described the UK as a "nation addicted to smartphones", and has found that 27% of adults, rising to 47% of teenagers, now own a smartphone. Of those people, OFCOM found that 47% of adults had downloaded an app.  Not only can we expect consumer demand for apps to rise, but consumers' appetite to see more video content within apps is also on the increase, opening up more opportunities for video content owners and rights holders. We see the opportunities for archive video material being licensed for use in apps spanning a whole range of genres and usages - it could be quizzes, nostalgia or simply bringing history to life.

We first licensed footage for use in a mobile app ahead of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June last year, drawing on our wealth of royal content to supply some of our best clips to a mobile agency which then developed a GPS-enabled Royal Tour app. Tourists who downloaded the app could then play royal archive clips when visiting certain London landmarks and be transported back into history. We also made the user experience relevant for people who may want to view the clips without actually visiting the particular royal location. For our next app, we licensed over 100 clips of all US Presidents since 1909 to an app developer called Mubaloo, which created the 100 Years of US Presidents on Film app. The app was launched shortly after the Presidential election to capitalise on the interest in the race for the White House. Both of these apps have given us invaluable insight to the business opportunities for archive content in the smartphone world where video viewing is growing rapidly.

The licensing of archive footage in the digital world doesn't stop there. We see potential markets on almost every digital platform, and in many cases there are opportunities for integrated multi-platform projects. One such example is work that we embarked on with the Middle East's largest mobile telecoms operator Etisalat to support the UAE's celebrations of their 41st National Day on December 2nd. We supplied a number of historic news films showing life in the region in the early 1960s, rare and previously untelevised footage of the UAE's founding fathers and coverage of the formation of the UAE in 1972. The footage was accessible on a dedicated National Day cable channel on Etisalat's E-vision platform and also through mobile and iPad apps. Digital was key to the delivery of the content to the client as well as its b2c distribution as we digitised the clips from our 16mm film masters and delivered the footage via our Aspira digi-delivery system to meet the client's deadline. It was simply a fully digital project from start to finish. 

These examples in the worlds of apps, e-books and cable channels certainly amount to a lot more than us just 'dipping our toe in the water' of new media markets, but we are certain that we are now only scratching the surface of the business opportunities that digital holds for archive content. In an industry that is unrecognisable from the antiquated tape-based supply of video content to a finite TV market, we are now on the cusp of a new and exciting era of digital licensing.

Andy Williams, Managing Director of ITN's licensing arm, makes his argument for a robust and fair copyright framework. This article is a reponse to Benjamin White's piece "Copyright for a digital age", which recently appeared on the New Statesman blog.

It's hard to get excited about copyright but the argument of what constitutes fairness in copyright and how intellectual property law can stimulate the economy is now the subject of Parliamentary and industry debate concerning controversial measures in the Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Bill and an impending announcement from the Intellectual Property Office (IPO).

On one side, rights holders like ITN are deeply concerned about the proposed dismantling of a robust intellectual framework that underpins significant investment in content creation and preservation. Meanwhile public bodies such as the British Library - whose Benjamin White recently voiced his opinions for the New Statesman - and companies that want "free" use of others' intellectual property view copyright as a cumbersome and outdated regulation. Whichever side of the fence you're on, the impact of the decisions made in coming months by Parliament, the Government and the IPO will be enormous.

A relaxation of copyright law may help the British Library cut down on the time it takes to clear rights and digitise its materials, but the extent of the radical proposals on the table for usage of orphan works, introduction of new and wider exceptions for "free" usage of copyright material, and a scheme for Extended Collective Licensing will go much further than just helping public sector institutions to better serve researchers. The very same measures could stifle actual creation of content in the medium to long term, devastate vast swathes of the creative industries - which employ two million people and contribute 6 per cent to GDP - and permit those who don't invest in UK original content to freely benefit from others' work.

The creative industries rely on a business model underpinned by a fair and robust copyright framework to discourage and legislate against illegal use. There are quite rightly instances that allow for free use of copyright material - for example an exception to copyright for news reporting is vital to freedom of speech and expression; but the IPO has proposed that a wide range of free usage could be introduced in instances of parody, education and a particularly grey area of "quotations". The policy statement confirming which additional exceptions they plan to implement is due before the end of the year. However, in calling for a lowering of the barrier for free usage of intellectual property, technology companies, public bodies and consumer groups may well find that if they get their wish then the content they want to use freely rather than pay a licence for will simply dry up or not be digitised for mass usage. It's a commercial reality that if there isn't a financial incentive then investment in content creation and preservation will suffer.

In addition, proposals for Extended Collective Licensing may seem attractive in offering a time-saving rights clearance mechanism for the British Library, but the opt-out nature of the scheme and scant detail could lead to organisations springing up to license others' content on their behalf without their knowledge and consent. There are fears about lack of transparency, inappropriate use of sensitive material, undercutting of prices and what US photography groups describe as a "firestorm of international litigation". It's bizarre that this is seen as necessary when a Copyright Hub is being developed by Richard Hooper and companies are already investing millions to digitise content and put it online to make it easy to find and be licensed.

There are, however, potential benefits to establishing a way to license orphan works - whether through UK legislation or implementing a recent EU Directive - as this could free up content that would otherwise lay dormant; but the system must protect creators' rights by having appropriate safeguards such as clear rules on what constitutes a diligent search to find the owner of a particular piece of intellectual property. A "use now, pay later" approach as advocated by Benjamin White concerns me greatly as less scrupulous organisations could see an orphan works system as a means simply to avoid paying for a licence.

It's also worth thinking back to the origination of all of these proposals - the Hargreaves Review, which hailed evidence-based recommendations that such measures could help grow the economy by £5.5bn per annum. ITN, along with many of the other 471 respondents to the subsequent IPO Consultation on Copyright, has helped to show that this projection simply doesn't stack up. Rather, unpicking our copyright regime will take money out of the UK economy as inward and domestic investment and syndication of original content is stalled or cancelled.

The risk becomes even more urgent when you consider that the copyright measures as currently drafted in the Enterprise & Regulatory Reform Bill before the House of Lords would enable much of this sea-change to happen by secondary legislation. Whether in favour of a change in copyright law or against it, no one should want fundamental alterations to be made without full parliamentary scrutiny and debate when there is so much at stake for public bodies and the commercial sector alike.

Most of us will admit that remembering anniversaries and more importantly, making them memorable is not always easy and can be very time consuming. We think the same is true for news forward planners and documentary-makers when it comes to preparing picture-rich and distinctive coverage for a significant anniversary of a landmark event.

At ITN Source, one of the most common questions we're asked by researchers and producers is what rare or unusual footage we have relating to an upcoming anniversary or major event. For those of you not familiar with our business, ITN Source is the content licensing division of ITN and we license both on-the-day news footage and archive footage from a number of partner archives dating back to 1896. In order to help you find those archive hidden gems to help bring a story to life, we've recently developed a simple online tool to help remind you of the key anniversaries over the next couple of years and we've invested in digitising large volumes of archive content associated with upcoming anniversaries so the content is more readily accessible.

If you're making a documentary to mark a particular anniversary, planning a special strand of commemorative features in your news programme, or you just want to invest in crafting an impactful one-off piece with the very best archive material then I would recommend you visit our dedicated web page www.itnsource.com/specials/anniversaries. Here, you'll find a calendar of upcoming landmark dates that you may or may not already be planning for - such as next year marking ten years since the invasion of Iraq, 50 years since the assassination of JFK or 100 years since the women's suffragette protester Emily Davison died.  If you want to delve deeper, then visit our compilations page www.itnsource.com/compilations and you'll find that our research teams have prepared over 300 compilations covering every year in history and almost every genre of content you can think of, so you can browse a range of footage from yesteryear that can enhance any documentary, news story or feature. Researchers and planners can now even download broadcast quality clips direct from our website since we completed the full digitisation of the ITN archive dating back to 1955 - a huge project involving the digitisation of 30,000 film cans and legacy tape formats.

If you're looking for more than just a well organised, online resource, you may be interested in finding out more about our face-to-face archive development workshops that we regularly hold with broadcasters and production companies. If you're planning a big project linked to an anniversary, then our research teams use these workshops to suggest relevant content and creative ideas that can help distinguish your story. I'll be happy to explain more to fellow delegates at NewsXChange.

I can't promise that I am any more diligent than the next person at remembering the anniversaries that I'm supposed to, but I can assure you that ITN Source has the tools, content and approach to help you create memorable anniversary programming.

ITN Source supplies ten hours of Rank archive material for 20 x 30' series produced by BBC Scotland

BBC FOUR has commissioned a 20-part series called 'Britain on Film' that will use archive footage from over 500 Rank Organisation cinema documentary films to give modern audiences a new visual perspective on the 1960s. ITN Source, the footage licensing division of ITN, is supplying ten hours of archive to BBC Scotland, which is producing the series. The content is entirely sourced from Rank's 'Look at Life' series, which was shown in Odeon and Gaumont cinemas from 1959 until 1969. The vast majority of this footage has never been seen on television before.

Each episode of 'Britain on Film' explores different aspects of British life and culture in the 1960s. The series includes episodes such as "A Woman's Place", which looks at the changing role of women during the decade; "The Cold War", which covers British responses to the tensions arising from the international conflict with nations behind the Iron curtain; and "Having Fun", which examines the new leisure opportunities opening up to the people of Britain. Throughout the series, the 'Look at Life' footage is accompanied by the original commentaries, rather than new voiceovers. As a result, viewers are given an authentic 1960s perspectives on many of the subjects covered. In this series, to a very great extent, the 1960s is allowed to speak for itself.

The original footage is taken from 35mm colour reels, with ITN Source restoring some content that had deteriorated over time. The series is Executive Produced by David Okuefuna and is commissioned by the Controller of BBC FOUR, Richard Klein.

"After I was approached by ITN Source, who alerted me to the vast spread of the Look at Life series, I realised there was a wealth of content to bring the sixties to life," said David Okuefuna, Executive Director of Britain on Film. "The films shine a light on every element of the decade, not just the 'swinging sixties' stereotype. We hope this series will be a richly enjoyable trip down memory lane for some - and a window on an unfamiliar world for others." "ITN Source always aims to be proactive in working with producers to help identify compelling archive content and to stimulate archive-driven programme ideas," said Andy Williams, Managing Director of ITN Source. "We're delighted to see this idea come to fruition with an entirely archive-based series commissioned by BBC Four. The footage from The Look at Life provides a fascinating insight into our lives in post-war Britain." The scheduling of Britain on Film has yet to be finalised, but the first run of films are expected to appear on BBC FOUR between now and March 2013.  Further details will follow in due course.

Royal landmarks of London will come to life this summer through the video-rich "Diamond Jubilee Tour" iPhone app from AlwaysOnMessage and ITN Source.

Users will be guided on a GPS-enabled walking tour of 15 of London's most important Royal locations. At each point, Royal fans will be transported to yesteryear as they watch relevant videos of iconic moments from ITN Source's exclusive video archive. The videos are also available without completing the tour for those abroad.

Particular video highlights include seeing the pomp of last year's Royal Wedding, the very young monarch feeding the ducks and playing in the gardens ofBuckingham Palace from 1937 and King George VI giving a King's Speech at Parliament in 1950.

The app is for iPhones and will be available on iTunes from 31st May, in time for the Diamond Jubilee weekend and beyond. All footage has been supplied by ITN's footage licensing arm, ITN Source, which has partnered with mobile agency AlwaysOnMessage in its first foray into providing archive footage for a mobile phone app.

The "Diamond Jubilee Tour" route starts at Westminster Abbey, where users can check in and share with friends on Facebook and Twitter that they are embarking on the tour.  The nine mile route finishes at a mystery location, which could be described as the major Royal household. The tour takes about two and a half hours to complete but people short of time or energy can adapt the route or choose to skip particular locations.

"This is a unique and truly regal experience for any visitor to London during the Diamond Jubilee," said Andy Williams, Acting Managing Director at ITN Source. "The archive footage that we have supplied brings London's Royal history to life like never before."

                                        
"I think it's fantastic that we've brought new technology to such a historic and traditional event. We've worked hard to deliver an experience that makes the jubilee more accessible for people who can't come to London to experience a very special moment in UK history. The iPhone combined with ITN Source content really brings the event to life," Peter Swain, CEO AlwaysOnMessage.

Gordon Innes, CEO of  London & Partners,the official promotional organisation of London, said, "Royal attractions are already hugely popular, drawing over 3 million visitors each year to the capital. Events like the Diamond Jubilee are a fantastic way to showcase these unique experiences and the Diamond Jubilee Tour app will help visitors learn even more about London's rich royal history and heritage.  The app is a great way of bringing London's royal story to life by helping visitors to engage with all that the capital has to offer."

This is the first app to be developed by AlwaysOnMessage using archive footage supplied by ITN Source. After the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the app will be further developed for more platforms and multiple languages and become a comprehensive Royal Tour app of London, featuring greater functionality and more locations. ITN Source is also investigating other ideas of how its archive footage can be incorporated into themed or event-specific apps.

The routes to market for licensing archive footage have increased significantly in recent years. This trend is set to continue through the development of more sophisticated multi-media platforms and an increase in consumer appetite for watching video content in new ways.

A few years ago the vast majority of content licensing from a video archive such as those managed by ITN Source would have been in factual and history programming. Of course, other TV genres such as drama would also feature some archive footage to depict real events or add a contemporaneous feel to the production - but these opportunities were generally limited and just a small part of our business.

Now, I'm pleased to say, it seems that almost wherever you go, whatever you watch, there can be an element of archive footage. At ITN Source we license archive content on behalf of partners such as Reuters, ITV Studios and Fox Movietone as well as all 57 years of ITN footage, working with a wide range of clients outside of the TV industry. The Oscar nominations out last week featured hotly tipped filmsTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,The Iron LadyandMy Week With Marilyn, all of which included content supplied by ITN Source. Elsewhere, our footage has been used by the likes of Jay-Z and the Stereophonics in music videos, Middle Eastern states for heritage projects, universities and schools around the world on e-learning platforms, blue chip companies for corporate films, and even artists for multi-media installations.

Beyond these markets, new media is now becoming an important growth area for archive. Amazon has said that is sells twice as many e-books as paperbacks and hardbacks combined. Where it was once rare to see someone reading an e-book, it's now unusual to step on the tube in London andnotsee someone in your carriage with an e-book in hand. Such tangible data and everyday anecdotal evidence has made e-books an interesting market for us. If someone is reading a book, regardless of whether it's fact or fiction, then there is almost certainly video content that can illustrate and complement the text.  Video enhanced e-books is a market still in its infancy and we need to work closely with publishers to ensure that any embedded video enhances the reading experience, not complicates or interrupts it, but the possibilities are exciting and limitless.  Our research into this area shows that while video could be used to enrich a wide variety of e-book genres, the creative execution of the idea will be critical in determining how much value it adds to the consumers' experience.

Another area of new media that is of real interest is mobile apps. Usage of apps has exploded in the last couple of years as the proliferation of smartphones has been driven by new models, more platforms and better infrastructure such as 3G and wi-fi connectivity. OFCOM has described the UK as a "nation addicted to smartphones", and last year found that 27% of adults, rising to 47% of teenagers, now own a smartphone. Of those people, 47% of adults had downloaded an app.  Not only can we expect consumer demand for apps to rise, but consumers' appetite to see more video content within apps is also on the increase, opening up more opportunities for video content owners and rights holders.  ITN Source has recently entered into a strategic partnership with a mobile app consultancy in order to develop bespoke B2C apps that exploit our content by drawing on our considerable archive.

The process of accessing archive material is also becoming much easier due to digital technology. We have just completed a two-year project to digitise the ITN archive, giving us the first fully digitised TV news archive. Now, clients can search, preview, download and purchase content via our online portal. With the content already digitised, it can be accessed and licensed for use on any platform in the matter of a few clicks - a matter of necessity in the digital world.

With 2012 only just beginning, watch this space for e-books and mobile apps enriched with video archive, because both markets present real opportunities for the archive industry.

Andy Williams, Acting Managing Director, ITN Source, for Broadcast  

            Archive is by its very nature a business that trades in bygone days. But our business model and infrastructure shouldn't be, or, indeed, can't afford to be, stuck in the past. While there's something romantic about vaults of creaking shelves crammed full of dusty tins of film, there's limited value to this archaic approach in the modern media landscape.            

If content is genuinely king then an archive isn't just our heritage, but, for many production and content companies, our biggest tangible asset - one that delivers returns as we license footage to a multitude of clients. However, many archives need a digital makeover to maintain relevance and be most effectively monetised. There are three drivers to going digital: it's expected that footage can be delivered almost instantly in a format that suits each client - think FTP rather than DHL; in a global market you need to have a web-based e-commerce portal to service clients 24/7 whatever the timezone; and, with Google long having become a verb, customers expect to quickly and easily search for a particular piece of footage without someone getting their hands grubby in a room full of cans of film.            

These drivers and the broader move to digital content and delivery have fundamentally changed the expectations that clients - from TV producers to film-makers to corporates - have of archives. ITN Source, the footage licensing arm of ITN, recognised this step change and took the decision to fully digitise our archive in a mammoth two-year project digitising and flash-scanning 30,000 film cans and legacy tape formats.

While I've outlined the reasons for the transition, it was a bold move for ITN to start this project in 2009. We had made a sound business case, but it was the middle of a recession with pressures on many of our clients' budgets, none of our rivals had attempted anything like this, and the project would require significant investment.  We took the decision to go ahead and, having outsourced the technical side to Deluxe, we're nearing completion. The final films and tapes have now been digitised and the content is available for search, preview, purchase and download on our portal.

There were challenges along the way though. For instance, there were variances in legacy metadata and the different formats that were used over the years. Not surprising considering the archive covers such a large period - starting in 1955 - and that methods and formats have changed significantly over time. However, we overcame these obstacles by constantly reviewing and adapting our workflow.

Now, ITN has the first fully digitised news archive in the UK and, depending on your point of view, it's either dangerous to be a pioneer or hugely beneficial to seize first mover advantage. All of the indicators on feedback from clients point to the latter and long may that continue.

While I've obviously focused on the business case here - as my CFO would expect me to - I also think it's important for the industry to move to digital to preserve history itself. Exclusive and iconic footage such as Nelson Mandela's first interview upon his release lives in our archives and it's our duty to ensure such footage is preserved for future generations as well as made easily accessible to film-makers and producers.

With digital content, delivery and growth firmly at the heart of the TV and film industries, this could be an historic time for archive businesses as we face the choice to digitise or be left on the shelf.

ITN Source has signed its largest international deal to license content from Education Clip Library, the unique, video licensing service from ITN Source and Espresso Group for educational publishers and broadcasters around the world.  

Bergmoser and Höller Verlag, the Aachen-based company that provides educational material for German schools, will license 2,200 clips from the Education Clip Library to launch a new e-learning web-based subscription service. The service will launch in time for the 2012/2013 school year starting in September to offer German schools the opportunity to incorporate the latest video-based e-learning content into their curriculum.    

The Education Clip Library content licensed by Bergmoser and Höller Verlag from ITN Source for six years covers all subjects and genres, spanning teaching material for pupils from three until 19 years old.  

"The opportunity to licence these high-value clips designed for school use poses an attractive possibility to broaden our own business activities and to offer a unique product to German schools," said Andreas Bergmoser CEO of Bergmoser and Höller Verlag.

"We are delighted that following a thorough research of the market, Bergmoser and Höller Verlag decided that Education Clip Library would deliver the best content for teachers and pupils alike," said Paul Tuvey, International Sales Director at ITN Source. "This is a significant deal for Education Clip Library and shows how video content can enhance the learning experience."

About ITN Source

ITN Source is the footage sales arm of leading news and multimedia content provider, ITN. ITN Source syndicates on-the-day and archive content to a global customer base. Its content spans multiple genres including news, drama, celebrity, environment, music, comedy, wildlife, natural history and film. ITN Source represents archive footage from ITN, Reuters, Fox Movietone, ANI and Channel 9 News, amongst many others. More information can be found at www.itnsource.com. More information about Education Clip Library can be found at  www.educationcliplibrary.com.

What a year 2011 has been for us in the news industry. Internationally, we've covered the Japan tsunami and historic events unfolding across North Africa and the Middle East. Back in the UK, we've had rioting in English cities, the phone-hacking scandal and, on a more positive note, the pomp and splendour of the Royal Wedding.

In each case, ITN journalists have delivered distinctive and compelling coverage, whether it be ITV News's Bill Neely being the only broadcast journalist to witness the clean-up by Gaddafi forces in Zawiyah after they re-took the town or Alex Thomson's unparalleled report for Channel 4 News from the devastated Japanese port of Minamisanriku.

Viewers have recognised this excellent coverage and on many occasions our output for the UK's two biggest commercial broadcasters ITV and Channel 4 has seen large surges in audiences. In addition, many millions more have watched our content worldwide through our international clients and partners.

Indeed, delegates at NewsXChange will know the great work done by ITN's content syndication arm ITN Source News in supplying high-quality on-the-day ITN. This year, ITN Source News has done sterling work syndicating distinctive packages and astounding footage about all of the major stories I've touched upon to many broadcasters throughout the world.  

I'm particularly proud of the achievements of ITN Source News during the Royal Wedding back in April. ITN Source News supplied a wide range of live feeds of the day's events, on-location production at key points of the celebrations, and bespoke production facilities to global broadcast partners such as NBC, CTV, ZDF and Australia's 7 Network and Network 10. Client feedback about the provision of content and services around the wedding was incredibly positive, both anecdotally at the time and later in a formal feedback survey that found 100% of clients were Very Satisfied or Satisfied that we understood their needs and delivered the required services.

But, we're never comfortable resting on our laurels at ITN. Just as our journalists work tirelessly to deliver fantastic reporting for our programmes, a lot of endeavour is going on behind the scenes too. We're just completing a project to fully digitise ITN's archive for the first time, something that no other UK news archive has achieved. And we are also relaunching the online presence for ITN Source News. These developments couldn't come at a more important time as a busy news year beckons with continuing events in the Middle East, the ramifications of the phone-hacking scandal and the celebrations to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. At a time when the news agenda shows no signs of abating, ITN will continue to rise to the challenge - both on-screen and off it.