Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports and Virgin Media in Britain have appointed ITN to produce a 24-hour sports news channel that they plan to launch in December.
The move will create about 50 editorial jobs at ITN, which will broadcast the new channel from its studios in London. The stations will show content from Setanta's own channels and from other broadcasters.
This is a major contract for ITN, which also produces news bulletins for ITV and Channel 4.
Setanta Sports News is a joint venture between the Irish television channel founded by Leonard Ryan and Michael O'Rourke, and cable operator Virgin Media.
It will rival Sky Sports News, a 24-hour channel run by the Rupert Murdoch-controlled satellite broadcaster.
Setanta's new channel will initially be available free on Virgin Media's cable TV platform in Britain, which has about three million subscribers.
Setanta said it also planned to make it available on satellite at a later date but it would not appear on Freeview, the UK's digital terrestrial TV platform.
The station will not be available in Ireland initially.
"We are having discussions with UPC (owner of NTL and Chorus) as to whether it will be available here," said Mark O'Meara, Setanta's chief operating officer.
Setanta also hopes to make the sports news channel available via satellite here at some point. Setanta Sports News was originally due to hit the airwaves in September but TWI, the sports-content production arm of IMG Media, pulled out of the project.
Setanta plans heavy cross-promotion for the channel through its established sports stations.
Setanta began showing live FA Premier League games from August and Mr O'Meara said it was happy with its ratings so far.
