ITV axes dozens in Midlands cuts

Around 61 jobs could go in the whole Central region

ITV is to halve its staff in the East and West Midlands with about 61 job losses, in order to cut costs.

Staff at Central East's base in Chilwell, Nottinghamshire, were told the cuts were part of a move to save £40m in its regional news output.

From next year a Midlands-wide programme will be broadcast from Birmingham, including a six-minute pre-recorded East Midlands bulletin.

Plans by ITV to cut regional news were approved by Ofcom.

An ITV spokesman said a "voluntary redundancy window" had opened on 18 September and would close on 17 October, subject to consultation.

He said staff in the Central region [east and west] would be invited to apply for the remaining jobs in October, and selection would be in November, with results expected by early December.

Bharat Patel, the National Union of Journalists representative at Central, said: "People are saying it's far worse than they expected, we're going to get around 50% redundancies across the Midlands.

"We did have 130 staff and we're going to be down to 69, so that's 61 jobs to go and it's going to mean a huge difference to the coverage that people get in the East Midlands."

As part of a restructuring plan, the broadcaster plans to cut its newsrooms around the UK from 17 to nine.

A total of 430 jobs are expected to go across the broadcaster's regional news services.

In 2007 ITV News announced a cost-cutting programme aimed at saving £40m a year.