Commercial broadcasters Carlton and Granada have bought control of the ITN News Channel, a 24-hour cable and satellite news operation.

The two have bought out the 65% stake from ITN, which provides television news services to British commercial television.

ITN News Channel is to be relaunched and integrated with ITV News, which its owners hope will allow to benefit from a wider range of on-screen talent.

Cable group NTL will continue to own the remaining 35% of the channel, which was launched in August 2000 to compete with BBC News 24 and BSkyB's Sky News.

Carlton and Granada, whose fortunes have been hit hard by the collapse of ITV Digital, their jointly owned interactive TV firm, have been the subject of persistent merger rumours.

The two firms also each own 20% of ITN.