ITV - Cutbacks & Proposed merger

ITV giants offload Ask Jeeves stake

It was more popular than I remembered it being at the time.

Query

If the ITV merger of the 2000's had happened in the 1980's do we think ITV would be in this state now?

The BBC is displaying a not very subtle amount of gloating snobbishness over the whole thing. I know they're rivals and everything, but it's terribly bad form.

Their web strategy is years behind the BBC and Channel 4. Having lots of different companies all doing their own thing as well as a fledgling itv.co.uk didn't help.

Difficult to say. I think a lot of us say things would be different now if Granada & Carlton hadn't merged back in 2004, even though of course we'll never know, but when you put the question like that, well at the moment my gut feeling is it probably would have failed much earlier. However, back in those days even if they held the majority of franchises across the country, the ITC would have just put them out to tender again (or perhaps as one national licence) and quite easily salvaged something from the wreckage - we could have lost ITV and got Channel 5!

If they're concentrating on video content it would help if they actually made their video content work. In both IE and Firefox I very rarely get their videos to work on the first attempt - yet never have a problem with the BBC's or C4's.

That would depend on how it was done.

One of the major problems that ITV has is lack of focus. It's undergone so many reorganisations as 11 companies became 6, then 3, then 2, then 1. The network has been in a state of flux for the last 18 years so there's been no focus, strategy or continuity. Now they've ended up not knowing quite what they are for or what they should be.

What they need to do is decide exactly what they are and what they want to be, then just do it - and have a big 'day zero' relaunch and then stick to the plan.

If it had happened in the 80's in exactly the same way I think they'd have got into a similar mess.

How do you mean? By reporting it? That's not bad form - that's economic news.

On a related note, the BBC's 10 O'Clock used this old ITV logo in studio tonight.

http://d.yimg.com/i/ng/ne/rtrs/20090209/00/1245325960-itv-satelite-dish-central-london.jpg

Perhaps one difference if it had happened in the 80's would be that the efforts would solely have been on the TV operation, while in reality the mergers have coincided with them diversifying into online ventures too.

It seemed pretty straight reporting to me, no sign of 'gloating' at all

Remember that the people reporting on the woes of ITV work in the same industry as those who are losing their jobs.There'll be a great deal of sympathy from the BBC, Sky and any other media outlet reporting about them.

You might like to think that there's a great rivalry between the various companies but it's quite an incestuous industry. We're all in it together

BBCs Look North from Yorkshire did a very good report on the ITV Yorkshire job losses on the 10;25 tonight. After Huw Edwards said goodnight it went straight into a Yorkshire ident from the late 70s. It was a well produced item. cartainly NO snobbishness by them.

Re the Cuts, I understand that ITV local will actually close on friday. Again ITV management rushing to do something. Why not wait until regional news content can be migrated onto ITV.com, perhaps later in the year.Smooth transitions ITV??? remember those. Where do your valued viewers now go to watch your valued regional news web content and all those initiatives and campaigns like ( ITV Fixers etc etc)
I guess it's all part of the demise of regional news . Have you noticed how the one bulletin a day at weekends particularly on a saturday is at 3;30 ish hidden in the schedule and NEVER gets a mention by the announcer. All part of the plan I guess. Deny its existance and eventually it wont be missed.

I wonder out of the 600 +job cuts announced today how many will be in management? There are far too many of them. Isn't it MIS- management that got them into this situation in the first place, although Grade would have everyone think it was the current economic climate and lossof ad revenue only ..Of course that hasn't helped, but ITVs MISmangement goes back years. They never really recovered from the On-Digital Debacle and who in their right mind would have bought Friend Reunited, especially when social network sights like facebook, Bebo etc were leaving Friends Reunited way behind. But did anyone of Mr Grades management fall on their sword for that gaff?? . White Elephant if ever there was for ITV. Like buying large shares in football companies , or Scoot or Bingo. The list goes on.
I'm affraid ITV has wasted far too much money on Internal strategies and "Away Days" for news staff, that quite frankly don't improve the quality of programmes (Particularly regional news at all) You could save a fortune from that alone I'm sure. Staff "Away Days" don't make better programmes. The evidence for that is very clear.
Stop crying wolfe Mr Grade and throwing out all these ideas and fears, hoping that one will eventually be taken seriously. The truth of the matter is You signed up for the franchises and with them comes certain resposibilities. You either play by the rules of the game, or let other companies have a chance. Of course the other sad fact is that Ofcom is a light touch regulator without teeth. Unlike Ofgem or Ofwat. Can you imagine the ITC or IBA allowing the tail to wag the dog!!!!

The program is still on the Look North homepage ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/northyorkshire/index.shtml ). A very good report on Yorkshire TV i thought. As you say absolutely NO snobbishness at all. Even mocking up a Yorkshire TV ident saying 'End of an Era'. You can certainly tell they feel for their fellow industry workers.