In the battle of the news walls, the news walls just got bigger. These exclusive pictures reveal for the first time the new £1m ITV News studio - dubbed a "Theatre of News" by ITN - which will be unveiled to viewers next Monday.
The state-of-the-art virtual set features a giant Imax cinema-style news wall, enabling bulletin producers to call up four video sources at any one time. The studio allows one presenter to sit behind an oval silver desk, with the other walking around in front of the giant curved screen.
Gone are the reddish hues of the existing set and in comes silver and icy blues forming a giant backdrop that will hold the news wall. The new look will set it even further apart from Sky News and the BBC, both of which use red tones to form their backdrop.
The editor-in-chief of ITV News, David Mannion, said the set was a "world first" and "marries reality and virtual reality in a way that hasn't been done before".
"The relaunch of our network news isn't about us simply freshening up the overall look of our programmes," he said.
"We wanted to be original, distinctive and modern - the set that we wanted just didn't exist; it couldn't be picked up off the shelf, so we had to invent it.
"It will allow us to deliver the news to our audience in a completely different way and give us much more flexibility. We will be able to tell non-visual stories in a more interesting way and it will also help us to deconstruct complex issues which need clear explanation.
"Rather than simply build a conventional studio with a giant, flat news wall within it, here the news wall is the studio. This will be our window on the world giving us impact, drama and scale like we have never seen before."
The relaunch coincides with the move of ITV's evening news to a permanent 10.30pm slot, finally bringing an end to the "news at when" saga that has dogged the channel's flagship bulletin for the last five years.
It will initially be presented by Sir Trevor McDonald for five nights a week, with Mark Austin as his potential deputy.
"We are going from the old-fashioned to the most contemporary," Mannion said on the ITV News operation in Monday's Media Guardian. "We'll be so far ahead that others will struggle to catch up."
· To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 7239 9857
· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".