A post on Digital Spy made some good points, some of which I only partially agree with, but all of which I feel would be improvements.
Quote:
1. Emmerdale and Coronation Street each made into two, one hour long episodes per week. Although some time is being cut off, with the shows only being on twice a week, people are more likely to watch. Many viewers just can't be free 4 or 6 nights a week to watch a half hour soap.
2. Comedy, as has been said, is risky, but I think a comedy hour is what ITV need. Two half hour sitcoms running at 9pm, for at least 20 episodes a year. If they don't want to throw them straight into ITV1, they can trial run them on ITV2, in the same way BBC uses BBC3.
3. For winter and new year, ITV have two highly successful Saturday night entertainment shows, X Factor and Dancing on Ice. Apart from that, all they have is Ant and Dec. Parky isn't primetime material, Afterlife isn't Saturday night material IMO, and ratings were pretty low this year and Millionaire is too dull. They need another family show for Saturday nights to bridge the gap between X Factor and its results show.
4. Dramas need to be made to at least 20 episodes, and on a higher budget, things often seem a bit cheap on some British dramas compared to US dramas. If they can't afford it, could they team up with Canadian and Australian broadcasters to create dramas to rival American ones?
5. Now, I'm moving even further into areas that I don't have a great knowledge of, but would it be possible to move the news to 11pm? It really screws up alot, this year, Love Island was a victim of it, and films are repeatedly ruined by the splits. To make it up to OFCOM, offer to make more documentaries, and air them against Eastenders if they are unlikely to get good ratings, thats a lost slot anyway.
6. Sell the 3.30pm to 5pm slot to one of the kids channels to run. They are the experts and it gets another concern out of ITV's way.
7. Get programmes on the internet. Wouldn't it be possible to show their TV shows on the net with the same ads as they put on tv, rather than charging people to watch?
Something like this would be a refreshing and large enough change that could help turn the tide.
I don't agree about the soaps, I think that would be better just be kept how they are. I generally agree with the other comments however, especially the one about having kids channels run the kids slot. If they were to do it, I'm sure Disney would go for it bearing in mind they used to provide weekend kids programming and they own 25% of GMTV. If the Disney Channel Original Series were to be shown in that slot, I'm sure it would be a success, with possibly Orginal Movies shown on a Friday. Sure, I know it's unlikely to happen, but it would make a lot of sence.
all new Phil posted:
I wish people would stop going on about ITV "going back to its regional roots". For a start, setting that up again would involve a huge amount of investment and for what gain? More people won't tune in just because the idents say Granada again.
It would also cause a lot of confusion, as the regional names are now out of use among those not into TV Presentation. Everyone I know calls it ITV1 now, and knows it as just ITV1, a national TV channel (which means ITV have got their way). They just think ITV1 Anglia is a local opt-out now, in the same way BBC East is. It's too late to go back.
What do I think could be improved, here's my thoughts:
1. Drama series lengths would be increased to about 20 programmes.
2. Give the children's slot in the afternoon to a children's channel, example Nickelodeon or Disney Channel. As CITV on the weekday afternoon does not get the viewers in.
3. The news on ITV1 need's to be looked at, in terms of presentation as it's all over the place at the moment. News content is brilliant, they got 4 RTS Awards this year!
4. The soaps definetly need to be reduced, as busy people can't watch them every weekday night. So I'd say reduce Emmerdale to 4 episodes and Coronation St. to 3 episodes. As I think they will get more viewers in if they are on less, e.g. they will be better storylines if its on less.
5. Continue with the comedy, they are bringing to the schedules. It's excellent, so I'd say to keep up the good work in that department!
6. The Saturday night schedules are brilliant at the moment, as they are very varied. Do keep it up ITV, with drama, entertainement & comedy being the genre's of the programming on a Saturday night.
I totally agree with you Andrew, expect for the soaps. They are highly rated, changing it could complicate it for viewers. Also, with the increased use of PVR's such as V+, Sky+ and Freeview ones, there is even less reason to change it. As for ITV News's presentation, it's not that bad, although it could do with a refresh and a switch to 16:9.
Lets face it, ITV is a mess. How would you improve its main channel ITV1 - is it a case of recommissionning better shows or do bigger changes need to be made to change people's thinking?
Take Primeval if on BBC1 it would have been more popular and probably better recieved... how can ITV change this image????
Interesting.
Last time you posted here you said that you worked for ITV and posted exclusives about schedule changes (that of course never happened)
Click on 'profile' and 'find all messages by' for a reminder!
I hardly think commissioning 20 episodes of dramas is the way forward. I'd like something like 12 episodes but I think that having 20 episodes of a drama is not only extremely risky (if viewers desert the show you've paid an awful lot of money for a flop) and plus you haven't got much variety in the schedule if it's the same drama on a Thursday night for 20 weeks. Not to mention writers finding it difficult to come up with material to spread across a series. Many American dramas have quite a few 'filler episodes'.
Having said that, Bad Girls had as many as 16 episodes in a few series so it could work.
And how is keeping the soaps at 5 or 6 episodes a week going to help improve ITV?
Because they are universally popular and pull in double the average ITV1 audience share ?
They'd be hard pressed to find anything to replace them that would do so well, that's the hard commercial truth.
the quality of the soaps would be so much higher if they didnt have so many episodes. They are going to run out of ideas for them with all these episodes.
the quality of the soaps would be so much higher if they didnt have so many episodes. They are going to run out of ideas for them with all these episodes.
These programmes are continuing to pull in over 40% audience shares which is a remarkable achievement in the multi-channel / internet / dvd era.
With audience shares such as those, I'm not sure the audience perceives their to be a problem as regards 'quality'.