Former ITN chief executive Mark Wood has been appointed chairman of a consortium bidding to run the Independently Funded News Consortia pilot in Scotland.
The move will put Wood in direct competition with his former employers in the battle to secure public money for the venture.
Woods will chair the Scottish News Consortium, an alliance of newspaper groups DC Thomson, the Herald & Times and Johnston Press with television producer Mentorn Scotland, a subsidiary of Tinopolis, the Guardian reported today.
The Scottish News Consortium is up against current ITV franchise holder STV, which is working with ITN and the radio division of Bauer to form the Scottish News Network.
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The two rival bids will state their case in Glasgow today when they meet the public and the independent selection panel tasked with selecting the preferred bidder.
‘The consortium will transform the way television and broadband news is covered in Scotland and create a new model for partnership between newspapers and broadcasters,” said Wood, who was ITN’s chief executive between 2003 and 2009 and was previously editor-in-chief at Reuters.
“Our ground-breaking plans for a truly multiplatform and interactive TV/web news service and this is a dramatically new way of engaging Scottish viewers with national regional and community news.”
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