ITV - Cutbacks & Proposed merger

Oh - Fern Britton would be good though, no?

I loved it in the Krypton Factor promo, when Ben Shepherd said,"its back and bigger and tougher than ever before", yeah except the presenter.

They should bring back Stars in Their Eyes!

They probably wouldn't but I can see Don't Forget The Lyrics or something similar on the cards rebranded as something totally different. Or perhaps The Colour of Money will move to Sundays.

Well they've had two variations of that already - one with JK and Joel, then Who Dares Sings last year, which was utter crap. The Sun trying to make a scandal out of that today as they gave away £25k in an unaired Christmas episode.

ITV could do a lot worse than bring back Duel - it's ratings may not have been outstanding, but they were healthy enough and with a few tweaks they'd be better off bringing back a format which is actually rather original and damn good than trying to come up with something new yet again.

I guess the credit crunch though means a return for Poker Face can be ruled out.

I do think that the way in which Millionaire was introduced 11 yrs ago, and how Pokerface first aired by being stripped across a week made more sense when introducing a game show. More people would have tuned in the following night rather than wait until the following week, especially when in the case of Duel, the programme continued from one programme to the next.
I agree that it should come back, and maybe if it was placed in the slot that the colour of money holds at the moment it may have helped, rather than being around 8:30 - 9pm

I agree stripping them across the week for the first series is the best idea.

I might be in the minority here but I just don't think Saturday nights is best for these type of quiz shows. IMO they should be reserved for pure unchallenging entertainment, with quiz formats better on Sundays or midweek. And considering once The Bill goes they'll have 100 hours to fill midweek surely they can spare 6-8 hours to give Duel a second chance. It's no riskier than yet another new show.

The Bill isn;t going, but just being reduced to once a week (from 96 to 52 episodes a year). So just 44 extra hours to fill, a lot of which will probably be with football

It's going to 9pm though, which leaves the 8pm hour free.

South Bank Show under threat:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/south-bank-under-threat-as-itvs-revenue-streams-run-dry-1639571.html

Ant and Dec under threat too:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/88111/ITV-kebabs-Ant-and-Dec-Takeaway

Not sure whether all this is just lazy journalism, but if it's true this isn't the way to go ITV. Surely now is the time to be backing your long serving proven programming rather than taking risks with new programming, however much cheaper it may be. Cutting costs like this won't necessarily save cash in the long run.

It is Michael Grade though lying through his teeth as always, saying viewers won't notice the difference - and yet axing things left right and centre.

I don't see them taking risks. They seem to be saving costs and axing programmes so they can concentrate funds on the likes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale. I think the future for ITV is very bleak and I'm not convinced it will survive after digital switchover.