Regional news could disappear from ITV schedules unless the commercial broadcaster receives about £100million a year in public money.

Michael Grade executive chairman of ITV said that his company - which owns the ITV licences in England and Wales - could not afford to run the 6pm regional news bulletins after 2012.

He proposed that news in the “nations and regions” might have to be “provided longer term by a publically funded third party,” and he suggested that the job could be done by ITN, the Press Association or Sky News.

Mr Grade’s intervention comes a few days after Ofcom, the communications regulator, warned that regional news may not be viable in the long term, and makes clear that ITV itself wants to back out of the historic service unless it receives cash from the BBC licence fee or elsewhere.

Mr Grade also warned of a bleak future for news programmes in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where independent ITV companies provide the bulletins. He said that services in Scotland and Ulster were subsidised “to the tune of more than £25 million per annum” - although that figure is disputed by both Scottish and Ulster Television.

If ITV did not reach agreement with ministers and regulators Mr Grade said he could no longer guarantee to provide regional news - or even News at Ten and British drama such as Lewis or Kingdom.

The commercial broadcaster would be able to drop regional news by abandoning its regulated “public service” licences which require it to provide high quality programmes in return for access to the analogue television spectrum. This spectrum is being switched off around the country, a process that will complete by 2012.

Mr Grade did say that ITV would try to support continued investment in British drama and national news after 2012 in such a scenario, but the future of the early evening regional bulletins could not be assured without “some level of public subvention”.

Even if ITV reached agreement with Ofcom, Mr Grade said that ITV was only prepared to “accept licence obligations for UK programming and impartial prime time network news.” Regional news was pointedly excluded from this part of the regulatory deal.

Politicians and regulators indicated that they recognised the pressures ITV is facing, as the commercial broadcaster grapples with declining audiences and a collapse in advertising.

Don Foster, the Liberal Democrat’s culture spokesman, said that regional news had to be protected although he recognised ITV’s dilemma: “I think we need to look imaginatively at the problem, but also see if there are solutions possible that do not need public subsidy to protect regional news.

Ofcom did not comment but nevertheless broadly agrees with ITV’s analysis of the problem. Last month the regulator tabled a consultation document that made it clear that the cost of providing regional news outweighed the benefits for ITV. It believes that around £200 million a year of public money is needed to support regional news and other forms of public service broadcasting.

Last week ITV said it would lay off 400 jobs and cut £40 million from its regional news service in what is seen as the first of many cutbacks. The decision was taken after Ofcom granted approval to ITV.