ITV Programming Thread

On a different note, I notice that new drama Finding Alice and the new series of The Bay and Marcella are having all episodes put on the ITV Hub once episode 1 has aired, in the boxset approach that the BBC have used for quite a few dramas of late.

Seems interesting that ITV are taking this approach, and doing it for three shows at once. An experiment or the new normal?

ITV have tried this once before, in 2019 with a drama called Deep Water. At the time Kevin Lygo didn’t come across as being especially keen as it made it harder to monetise, as of course it means lower overnights. Has a lot changed since?

They’re also going on britbox as well

Instead he used Pop Idol Extra's presenter.

And he still got sued on that anyway.

Marcella airing on a Tuesday quite interesting as well - think it is quite some time since they had a weekly drama there - usually it's a strong BBC1 slot.

A more traditional schedule for the next few weeks with weekly dramas and programming after much of 2020 saw shows stripped weekly, which seems to be their favoured approach and I think with short series like the Pembrokeshire Murders helps keep momentum across the week.

Watched ep1 of the Pembrokeshire Murders last night. Interesting they used real footage of BBC Crimewatch. I'm always amused that TV drama doesn't get the detail of TV production right. There was a live interview on ITV Wales Tonight, it was Nov 2006, and they'd gone to the trouble of having the actors wearing poppies, however the interview on a cliff top was in daylight, and no SNG truck to be seen. Just saying

It does say in the opening text the usual disclaimers that certain things have been changed from the reality for dramatic purposes, and in reality the presence of a truck doesn't really add anything to the drama.

Interesting to note (not to spoil it for you I hope!) that they essentially rotoscoped the John Cooper actor into the episode of Bullseye in question (replacing the real Cooper from the actual footage). In a lot of other dramas that involve a TV programme or somebody's appearance on a show they essentially go back and recreate things like that, but in this case they didn't.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the tip off that Cooper had appeared on Bullseye didn't come about in the way it was presented, but the episode he appeared on had been repeated and that was when somebody spotted the likeness. But of course the Bullseye thing isn't the main drive of the entire affair, but it just goes to show if you do commit homicide, don't go on a gameshow years later, especially one that ends up being repeated ad-nauseam decades later

BBC1 don't have drama there initially at least so there's a gap. I think it's more that Marcella was quite weak last time round and is probably only back on ITV because the new series is a co-production with Netflix, so ITV won't have footed so much of the bill.

Not that it'll be there for long. In another unusual piece of scheduling, Marcella is airing in double bills on Tuesday nights, so episode 2 follows episode 1 directly and airs at 10.05pm. I assume they'll carry on doing the same, so will double up 8 episodes over 4 weeks. I suppose with it being a Hub boxset anyway lower overnights for the doubles matter less. I wonder if they've finally therefore cracked the financials on putting stuff on Hub as a boxset?

Yes, a more traditional schedule, although less so given the Hub boxsets. And with Marcella being doubled up, my guess is that they'll have another stripped series in late Feb/early March.

Even if not rating well you'd think they'd favour two 9pm slots if running as double bills, saving presumably Long Lost Family for a later date. As you say it is almost a burn off.

Long Lost Family rates better than Marcella so it was unlikely to be pushed back for a show which frankly is a modest success at best.

The casting of David Flynn as ITV Wales' Jonathan Hill is spot on though. The drama is actually based on Jonathan's book I believe.

I believe Curb Your Enthusiasm got a conviction overturned because the person accused of murder was at a basketball game that was filmed for an episode so it works both well.

I imagine any would be murderers will be avoiding shows like The Chase or Tipping Point from on!