Will ITV bounce back like usual?

Its very lazy scheduling, its like they cant be bothered to come up with something new and exciting that will pull the viewers in so just stick as many episodes of the soaps on a week as they can get away with.

The day of massive audiences for shows is no longer with us apart from a few exceptions, but there are masses of people out there that still watch television but just not at the same time. Getting 6-7 million viewers isn't too bad but a few years back Emmerdale was getting more at that time and several times on Monday nights a show on BBC1 actually beat it. That show was Telly Addicts. A show that appealed to a large and different audience and got people watching that timeslot that wouldn't normally.

ITV's rule is, if at first you don't succeed put on another episode of a soap; Marcus Plantin is to blame for this when he was Controller of ITV, it was a short term fix to a long term problem. ITV might be able to win the timeslot with Corrie or Emmerdale but perhaps they'd be able to win the slot by a few more million if they came up with the right show.

After the demise of Noel's House Party and Blind Date TV bosses were saying Saturday night TV was dead then along came Ant and Dec, and then with even more viewers The X Factor. And then who would have thought that a resurrected Come Dancing would do so well? This show brought in a large number of viewers that felt ostracised and disenfranchised with Saturday night TV. TV bosses were going for the younger viewer and if channels are going for the same demographic of course the ratings will be high for one show and low for another. SCD brought in the older viewers so you had two high rating shows and more people watching at the time. The total viewership for the time period where Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor clashed was over 20 million!!

The problem is TV bosses accept fragmentation of the audience as a fact of life, but come up with a buzzworthy show and you'll hook the viewers. Look at how ABC in America turned themselves around with Lost, Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives. They then had a big hit with the US version of SCD called Dancing with The Stars. Then along came Super Thursday where you had Dancing with The Stars, American Idol and Survivor being broadcast at the same time and getting combined viewership similar to the number of people watching the American networks in the 90's.

The viewers are out there and if the right programme was there they'd come and watch. With Emmerdale on Monday to Friday at 7 and BBC1 mimicking the daytime schedule with dull worthy programmes Monday to Friday at 7 they've driven off large numbers of viewers.

As somebody here mentioned, in the old days ITV used to have something different every night at 7. The Krypton Factor on Monday, Never The Twain on Tuesday, This Is Your Life on Wednesday, Wish You Were Here on Thursday and Play Your Cards Right on Friday as an example. That variety is missing now and BBC1 is just as much to blame. Casualty’s ratings power diminished when it turned into a year round programme (more or less), familiarity leads to indifference.

Just give us some variety, something new, something that’ll get the public talking and running home to watch it.

So to sum up...Variety is dead on ITV1 and BBC1 because of the now multi-channel world, so TV bosses/schedulers are not working hard to compete with this - thus becoming lazy by churning out the same audience grabbers such as soaps and reality TV all the time. This all makes sense when in ITV's view its only the shareholders and big wigs that seem to matter.

SPOT ON!!! They don't innovate they just regurgitate.

And ABC have been a distant third in the US since the 50s.

I have to say that I think the US is producing higher quality TV than the UK at the moment, and that's something I'd never have said ten years ago. I don't like all of it, but it is a damn sight more imaginative than 90% of what both ITV and the BBC are putting out now. And of course with more money to throw at programming, this compounds the problem.

At least the BBC are making an effort, ITV just seem to have keeled over. It's all very well saying "oh wait until Pop Idol comes back" but that's missing the point; where is the innovation? Relying on proven formats is not enough to reverse their fortunes.

ITV at this stage would probably be better off swallowing their pride and competing for US imports rather than filling up the schedules with extra Coronation street and ill-advised reality junk.

Who care if ITV fells!

There programmes a awful!, maybe some should buy them over! Like Mr Dkye

If that's been edited twice, I would have like to have seen the original

You lot don't know how hard it will be for me. I have to collect my results on my birthday!

Awww I sympathise and wish you luck. I am getting a taste of how hard it is though .

Is there any possible, slim chance of you shutting the [expletive deleted] up about soddin' examinations and simply talking about the subject of the thread?

If you were to do so, it would make the flow of the thread far easier to follow.

Maybe they are in some warped way relating some people's GCSE failure to ITV? It wouldn't be too hard actually...

Mmmmmmmmm, good point.