It's clear ITV is in major decline (take the ratings recently, truly abysmal) and the entire network needs a good kick up the arse. Things wrong with ITV (to name but a few):
ITV Play.
Waste of time; a cheap, tacky cop-out channel devoid of any real purpose or reason for viewers to tune in. To think they axed the news channel for this.
ITV News.
After axing the news channel, they now plan to axe half of the Lunchtime News. The news at 10.30 is stupidly scheduled, acting as an irritating "barrier" for any programs to air for more than 30 minutes at 10 o'clock. Also, I just love its new presentation, with people 'walking' on the Big Ben clock face. So professional Oh, and the theme music, worthy of a Hollywood thriller, and they way they zoom in three times on the headline image, with a whoooossh.
Cheap, tacky shows.
We all thought the biggest mistake of all time was commissioning Celebrity Love Island. However, we were wrong. The REAL biggest mistake of all time was recommissioning it. It's fallen flat on its arse, quite deservedly. Other shows such as Celebrity Wrestling fall into this category.
The daytime schedule.
Full of meaningless, unwatchable programs or repeats, it's in a total mess. After losing Paul O'Grady to Channel 4, its teatime slot is in ruins too. Loose Women seems to be its only juggernaut, and we all know it doesn't grow on trees. In its breaks, there is nothing on.
The evening schedule.
Full of soaps, the evening schedule lacks creativity and variety. 10.5 hours of soap a week is truly pathetic. Ten years ago it would have been around half that. Aside from the soaps I am at a loss to name a single other program that airs in the evening.
ITV4.
This fell flat on its arse too. ITV had such high hopes for this channel, but in the end it just couldn't deliver, and ITV are stuck with a waste of money here. It's not pulling in viewers and is generally failing. Oh dear.
ITV2.
What is ITV2? Ricki Lake, Judge Judy and Emmerdale? Oh, don't forget Celebrity Love Island: Aftersun! Seriously, ITV2 has very little going for it. It has the odd good show but is usually a load of rubbish really.
Balance.
So in the autumn you've got ITV pulling quality show after quality show after ratings winner after ratings winner out of the bag. The X Factor (which, love it or hate it, is good entertainment), Ant & Dec's shows, etc. Then in the summer you've got truly abysmal schedules: Love Island, etc.
Cowardly executives.
Too terrified to even think of new concepts, let alone commission them, the pathetic ITV commissioners and schedulers are apparently gripped with fear at the prospect of trying something new. Think up new ratings bankers? Nah, let's just order some more Corrie episodes!
I could go on but really it's all just making my blood boil Here's what I'd do to fix it:
Axe ITV Play.
ITV Play would become ITV2+1. Arguably a cop-out, but +1 channels are quite successful, and anything's better than that trash.
Axe ITV4.
ITV4 would become ITV Film, the UKs second free film channel. Would rival FilmFour.
Completely overhaul the news.
Would give control of everything back to ITN, who would design and order new sets, opening titles and everything else. The only part of it related to 'ITV' is the name. ITV News would air at 12 noon, 7pm and 11pm.
Axe 50% of soap output.
Coronation Street back to 3 nights a week, Emmerdale the same, and The Bill back to 1 hour a week. Corrie and Emmerdale stripped from Sunday to Friday in the 7.30pm slot. The Bill as is. The omnibus editions are axed, and so are repeats. You either watch them on ITV1, or you miss them. Simple as.
Become versatile.
Draw up schedules that are flexible and versatile, incorperating every genre of television.
Sort out ITV2.
Set up a first look system, like E4, and acquire US imports. If possible, outbid Channel 4 for some decent shows, and have them air first on ITV2 at 9pm. They would air on ITV1 the next week at 10pm.
Go upmarket with the presentation.
ITV1 especially. If I see that stupid man feeling up his stomach and those fools hugging a tree once more, I'll break my TV!
That's all I can think of for now... let's hear your ideas!
Don't be so patronising, and overly friendly, you small CBBC child.
Sorry. He did look a bit suspicous though, one of those banned members that easily can clean their IP address and such, so they can re-join over and over again.
Axe 50% of soap output. Coronation Street back to 3 nights a week, Emmerdale the same, and The Bill back to 1 hour a week. Corrie and Emmerdale stripped from Sunday to Friday in the 7.30pm slot. The Bill as is. The omnibus editions are axed, and so are repeats. You either watch them on ITV1, or you miss them. Simple as.
Agreed about putting them back to 3 times a week, and The Bill to 1 hour a week. Its ridiculous having over 12.5 hours of them when you add them all together.
No sure I agree with axing the repeats though? The late night repeats are good. And the omnibus is handy if you are away or miss an episode during the week. And if they reduced them to 3 episodes a week the omnibus would only take up around half the time and not almost an entire daytime weekend schedule on ITV2!
Bouncing some ideas back to BSkyB; while some of your ideas have some creedence, there are a couple of holes...
BSkyB posted:
ITV Play.
Waste of time; a cheap, tacky cop-out channel devoid of any real purpose or reason for viewers to tune in. To think they axed the news channel for this.
The ITV News Channel was axed because it was falling behind in ratings... ISTR it was at one stage getting less than CNN. ITV Play is pulling in a new revenue avenue which is still expanding.
BSkyB posted:
Cheap, tacky shows.
We all thought the biggest mistake of all time was commissioning Celebrity Love Island. However, we were wrong. The REAL biggest mistake of all time was recommissioning it. It's fallen flat on its arse, quite deservedly. Other shows such as Celebrity Wrestling fall into this category.
Love Island has been axed.
BSkyB posted:
The evening schedule.
Full of soaps, the evening schedule lacks creativity and variety. 10.5 hours of soap a week is truly pathetic. Ten years ago it would have been around half that. Aside from the soaps I am at a loss to name a single other program that airs in the evening.
Check BARB's rating for soaps. They appear to continue to bring in the most regular viewers/revenue, even though ITV is saturated in them.
BSkyB posted:
Axe ITV Play.
ITV Play would become ITV2+1. Arguably a cop-out, but +1 channels are quite successful, and anything's better than that trash.
See above about why ITV Play isn't going anywhere in the next 2 years.
BSkyB posted:
Axe ITV4.
ITV4 would become ITV Film, the UKs second free film channel. Would rival FilmFour.
And what films could you show on this film channel that haven't got contracts attached already? I don't think Carlton Cinema's contracts are valid anymore...
BSkyB posted:
Completely overhaul the news.
Would give control of everything back to ITN, who would design and order new sets, opening titles and everything else. The only part of it related to 'ITV' is the name. ITV News would air at 12 noon, 7pm and 11pm.
I thought the ITV News was an ITN production, I'm sure that's what the end-cap says. With regards to a 7pm news, I don't think that ITN would be too happy with 3 news programmes across the three commercial terrestrial channels at the same time. Where would all the choice go?
BSkyB posted:
Axe 50% of soap output.
Coronation Street back to 3 nights a week, Emmerdale the same, and The Bill back to 1 hour a week. Corrie and Emmerdale stripped from Sunday to Friday in the 7.30pm slot. The Bill as is. The omnibus editions are axed, and so are repeats. You either watch them on ITV1, or you miss them. Simple as.
YouTube & Torrent networks would have a field day (and lack of space) with the influx of single editions of soaps flooding their networks, and what would be shown in the times that you've axed? As stated above, there is a good commercial reason why we have so many soaps...
You won't get any. The member is a troll who continues to join up. He copies and pastes DS threads which are out of date or innaccurate (as has been mentioned above). He started as UKTVGames, and has had a million usernames since.
The give away is opening sentences with "Will".
If you had read the earlier replies you could have saved yourself some typing.
