Nicholas Wheeler is stepping down from his position as the managing director of ITN On, the multi-platform division of news supplier ITN, reports Broadcast. He had been with the company 14 years and it is not known what his next position will be.
Wheeler’s departure comes amid a restructuring at ITN that included 15 job cuts and a salary freeze for 2010. At the time, ITN also reorganised into three divisions: ITN Productions, ITN Source and ITN Consulting and Ventures. ITN On’s production arm is now part of the production division.
Wheeler has headed the multimedia division since 2002 and has been responsible for a number of groundbreaking deals to syndicate ITN’s news, entertainment and lifestyle content to new platforms.
He was one of the earliest advocates in the UK for mobile content among media companies. “Mobile is at the heart of our developing business,” he told me back in 2004. “We’re not going to grow a long running contract with established clients. This is our new business, and among all our new business opportunities it’s up there as number one or two of what we’re doing.”
ITN On provides content to portals like MSN, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), blinkx, as well as YouTube, Bebo, The Telegraph, 3, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD), T-Mobile and Orange, among others.
But new business with new clients hasn’t been enough to offset declines elsewhere: the November announcement on restructuring came after a £3 million pre-tax loss for the first half of the financial year.
The broadcaster ITV (LSE: ITV) owns 40 percent of ITN; Daily Mail (LSE: DMGT), United Business Media (LSE: UBM) and Thomson Reuters (NYSE: TRI) each have a 20 percent stake.

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