The programme began as the
ITN Morning News on 15 February 1988 with the advent of
24-hour television on ITV; preceding it throughout the night would be 90-second mini-bulletins, fronted by the same anchor as the Morning News. It originally ran for an hour from 5:00am and was the first pre-
subscription television outlet in Britain to broadcast regular segments from
CNN. The first thirty minutes included a broadcast of the
ITN World News, a bulletin intended for the international audience and composed solely of major world stories, and the second thirty minutes focused on national news stories. The practice of including the
ITN World News as part of an "hour-long"
ITN Morning News ended by 4 March 1991, and the time slot was amended accordingly to 5:30am. During the Christmas period, the programme was shortened to a 5 minute bulletin airing at 5:55am. Some
EPGs and
TV listings referred to the programme as the
ITV Early Morning News. On 2 November 2009 the
ITV Morning News was renamed as simply
ITV News to coincide with the re-branding of ITV News output. On 27 November 2012, it was announced that ITV was to axe the bulletin in favour of delivering content online for
itv.com and extra resources to be put into creating a new foreign affairs unit. The last edition of the programme was aired on 21 December 2012, and presented by
Sascha Williams. ==Newscasters (1988–2012)==