British news agency ITN has launched a video-focused news iPhone application, allowing users to watch video news reports on their iPhone, even if they have no Wi-Fi connectivity or 3G reception. Since its launch over a week ago on Apple’s App Store, it has been downloaded almost 45,000 times in 10 days and is free to use.

The emphasis is currently, however, on free. An ITN spokesperson said that the purpose of the app is to get ITN’s videos “out there” on mobile phones, and at present there were no concrete plans to put ads in the content. In the future, if they were to launch ads, they would “most likely” take the form of sponsorships.

According to Ave Wrigley, ITN’s Head of New Media, the decision to jump into the iPhone market was taken after a successful collaboration with Google on an Android app.

ITN claims is the first video news service available via the iTunes App Store.

[via MocoNews - Washington Post]