Areas where ITV is 'missing a trick'

ITV regularly has a whinge about its financial problems and is always trying to slash jobs and its PSB requirements, but I always feel there are some - seemingly obvious - things they could be doing to make a bit more money.

In recent years the music industry suffered due to illegal downloads, but some things have changed. The first is the introduction of 'Spotify' - allowing users to stream content instantly, legally, free of charge, with the occasional advert. You can also upgrade for a small fee to listen without adverts.

Secondly is taking acts on tour. The real money in the music industry comes from taking a successful act on tour. Now acts going on tour is by no means a new thing, but recently we've seen acts like The Saturdays have their own theatre tours after just three moderately successful singles, and it's made the record company a load of money.

Both of these ideas could help ITV.

ITV themselves have suggested are charging viewers for 'clips' on their site, charging for ITV player on the site and also charging for their channels - taking them off Freeview. The problem is, I think most people would simply choose not to watch ITV if this was the case. The Susan Boyle clip would probably not have been a hit if it cost 25p to watch. The 'magic' of clips like this is that they can spread around the world because they are free. Instead, why didn't ITV have an advertising deal on the clip - rather than allowing fans to upload it to Youtube.

I don't think many people would pay to watch ITV shows online, but perhaps people would pay 99p to watch an episode without adverts. They'd have to trial it of course to see how it goes, but the logical step would be to offer monthly subscriptions to ITV's on demand content without adverts - and keep it available for free with adverts too.

On the subject of ITV.com, why aren't they selling advertising space on 'catch up' in conjuction with the terrestrial broadcasts? As on demand is now a popular format, surely it would be more profitable to say "for your money, your ad will be broadcast to 4million on Wednesday, and an additional 200,000 online over the next month", rather than selling advertising space on ITV.com seperately.

Just like the music industry, why not take more shows 'on the road'? The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent are hugely popular, and this year both have held auditions in front of a live audience. Why not charge a few pounds for tickets? I'm sure people would pay a nominal fee to watch the auditions.

Also, why not hold the X Factor finals and semi finals somewhere other than a TV studio. I'm sure the X Factor final could fill the M.E.N or o2 arena. I know most of my friends, myself included, would pay £20 a ticket to go and see the X Factor final, live at the o2.

They sold 'Carlton Screen Advertising' as it wasn't a "core asset". Why not simply rename it "ITV Screen Advertising" - then play an ITV ident into cinemas across the country every night for a bit of free advertising and brand awareness!

I'm not even touching the tip of the iceberg here, but it seems like there is so much more ITV could be doing. Why have they instead been directing their efforts to 'Friends Reunited', 'ITV Bingo' and 'ITV Babysign'? Whilst I don't think there's any harm in branching out now and then, ITV made its fortune by making programmes people wanted to watch. They need to buck up their ideas and get these programmes out to people in a way they want to access them, and figure out how to make money by doing that.

Cutting inflated bonuses (and wages?) for executives could be another idea

From a presentation point of view, I think an in-vision continuity team might help add some value to the station. At these times, the audience likes a friendly reassuring face, and there are other ways that ITV could exploit their new found celebrities.

They should stop making ITV News look so grand with the 'theatre of news'. It's tacky, and not needed. A bulletin delivered in a plain studio has way more authority, whilst having an edge of warmth. All the special effects are a vast waste of money that most viewers would not even notice.

They really should return at least an hour or two of children's programming to weekday afternoons. They could take advantage of their vast archive of children's programmes to exploit the student market.

I think a big statement of change would be to let Ant & Dec go. They have become part of the furniture, and are popular, but if we're honest, most of the programmes they front are equally as watchable without them. Dropping them would give a big message that ITV is changing.

Oh, and they really need to cut back on the amount of Emmerdale & Coronation Street throughout the week. It may be popular but it's suffocating other popular genres (gameshows, chat shows etc)

The X Factor isn't made by ITV Plc though so they wouldn't make the money on that anyway. They do of course take Dancing on Ice on tour after the series has finished which is one way of exploiting a brand. I'm not really sure ITV have enough brands to exploit at the moment which is a big problem.

All of that is fantasy over practicality. Realistically, kids TV will not return because daytime TV rates much higher than kids TV and hence makes more profit. They'll also need to find some pretty big ratings hits to plug gaps left by Emmerdale and Corrie. ITV News effects comes out of the budget which is paid to ITN as part of the deal so whether it comes from a cupboard with a journalism student or comes from the theatre of news (which doesn't actually exist anymore) with Mary Nightingale, it will cost ITV the same anyway.

If ITV are to make pay channels, it would be a huge mistake to turn ITV2 into a pay channel. However I do think that ITV3 could survive as a classic pay channel, and if ITV4 makes the right investments in football, boxing and F1 could definitely become a successful pay channel. CITV could join Sky pay kids channels no problem.

The other obvious thing to do is sort out the ITV Player. Its awful and if they copied BBC with a simplistic design on flash and Channel 4 with archive shows and embedded adverts, it would become much more profitable. Another thing that could see them through the summer, especially when ITV appears to be in terminal decline, is reality TV. I think that ITV should make a swoop for the rights to Big Brother once the contract comes up for renewal. Apparently it breaks even at 2.5m when it is currently costing £60m per series. As the ratings for the latest series aren't great, the price will be slashed and the break even level will be much lower. On ITV it could be guaranteed 3m viewers at its very worst by default. It would fill up so much air time for them at a time of year when they struggle and it is still a big draw for 16-34 year olds, a demographic ITV struggle to attract. ITV need to get these viewers if ITV is to have a future. As said in the post above, they don't have brands to exploit and although it isn't the most popular of brands at the minute, with a bit of work it can be reasonably successful for ITV.

I suppose one of the biggest exploits could be gameshows, they seem to be doing a Family Fortunes DVD each Christmas anyway. They have tried to exploit the soaps as much as they can, though the games & things don't seem to work.

I agree with some of your ideas Whataday, they should bring childrens programmes back to the main channel. As they have a strong daytime schedule I think it would make more sense to put the hours in weekend mornings (that they just seem to be filling it with repeats at the moment), they could really create a strong weekend programme to bring in children & adults again to maximise all adverts with differing audiences.

I'm not sure I agree on your idea that Ant & Dec could be replaced, I think there are only a selection of stars who can do what they do & make it look as easy as they do. I do however think that in recent years they haven't been seen much on screen, with around 8 weeks of Takeaway, I'm A Celeb & Britain's Got Talent, even if they filmed a series of Poker Face it would increase their hours on TV against the money they spend. At least they get as much as they can out of stars like Phillip Schofield, and even Holly Willoughby.

I don't think cutting Ant and Dec is the answer! Who would replace them? You say it's easy to find good and popular presenters, but it's something which has escaped the BBC for many years.

I think ITV have got a few things right; ITV2 is doing very well in its target market, and I think the fact that they have a different set of 'faces' on ITV2 is a wise decision. People like Peter Andre and Jordan are absolute trash TV - but they do draw an audience, and keeping them off ITV1 keeps their main channel a little less trashy.

I do think they should rename ITV3 and ITV4. What's the benefit of them being called '3' and '4'? It's meaningless and says nothing about the channels' content. 'ITV gold', 'ITV choice', 'ITV classics' would all be good names for '3'. Not sure what they'd call 4, but I'm sure they could conjure up something that would capture the imagination.

I don't think that would help at all. They do need better voices though.



It's fantastic, the best news set on British TV.



Like BBC News? It's not warm, it's cold and bleak.



That's quite insulting to the viewers intelligence.



Changing to what, a carbon copy of the BBC? Ant & Dec are very popular and they don't have a negative effect on ITV's image, so I don't understand why you'd let them go.

Axing Jeremy Kyle would be a better move. As would changing the title of Loose Women. Then hopefully people wouldn't look down their noses at ITV so much

That would be suicide, they're a massive pull for the network.

Sadly lots of people who advertisers want to target watch that show. But I agree it's exploits kids and the mentally ill.

ITV Crap That we Cant Put on anything else?

I Think the ITV brand has just killed itself, its now associated with crap reality shows, I think a much better name would be 3, and they could have a good rebrand, rename ITV2 - 3Xtra, have a dedicated movies channel in 3Cinema, and 3Gold for ITV 3, and have some goddamn good PROGRAMMING! Keep the X factor and Dancing on Ice, cut the rest, save a bit of money there, and write some good drama, bring back the prisoner!

Brilliant thread. The way to improve ITV's fortunes is to axe all the most popular shows/faces they have and bring back in vision continuity.

I can't see how it could go wrong.