ITV Discussion Thread

Well, as it has been announced that Tonight will only be on Fridays at 730 from 2010, and Emmerdale is in the 7pm slot and no soaps will move back to a Sunday for the forseen future, where else is the Friday 730 episode going to go?

It cant have the Tuesday 730 slot because if the Eastenders argument whilst the 8pm is normally WWTBAM?

Wednesday have been frred due to Champions League, Thursday schedule is now full of soap and only programme it could displace would be the "country" programme - but guess what - up against Eastenders, and I cannot see 90 minutes of Corrie on a Monday

Only other day would Saturday and are they mad enough to do that??? (actually don't answer that!)

WHERE has this been "announced"?

It hasn't been announced that Tonight will be Friday at 7.30 as far as I am aware. It was guessed as a suggestion in one article on MediaGuardian but has been dismissed by most people as ridiculous.

That leaves them with an hour to fill on Thursdays though - and nothing else is going to bring in 7m viewers week in, week out.

An instant boost though would be switching Corrie and Emmerdale in the 8pm hour on Thursday. At the moment, viewers are not switching back to ITV1 at 8.30pm if they're not that bothered about Emmerdale.

@Brekkie, if they swapped them the 8.30pm Emmerdale would perform badly IMO.

I long for the days of Corrie being at 7.30pm ONLY on Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri and Emmerdale being Mon-Fri 7pm for HALF an hour.

I'm sick to the back teeth of these double episodes everywhere, of the unstable soap schedules with the momentum-breaking gap from Monday to Thursday and the different timeslots thing. It's so ridiculous.

I totally agree, Pad, its got to the point where I just watch the omnibus of Corrie on Sunday mornings nowadays, fed up of wondering when a sopa is on which day, which time etc. Its this sort of scheduling that was ultimately the death nail for Brookie! - People gave up trying to find it!

It's not ideal but besides going up against Holby City or airing at 7pm there was nothing they could do to stop this

Here's an idea for ITV1 from 2010. They would heavily market this as consistency for the soaps.

http://www.gorillaenterprises.co.uk/upload/uploadFiles/itv1schedule.gif

Both Emmerdale and Corrie are stripped across the week, at 7pm and 8.30pm respectively, for one half-hour episode each.

On Wednesdays where there is football, the episode is made up either that week or the next time ITV has space in a 9pm slot on any day Corrie airs, forming an hour-long episode until 9.30, followed by 30-minute filler material.

If possible the missed episode would be made up on the same week but if a series was running in Mon, Tue and Fri slots, ITV would save the episode for a free week and put something like Tarrant on TV after it, then start the new drama/documentary series a week later.

Planned in advance, ITV could inform the bosses at Corrie so they could craft specially made hour-specials for the year. It might transpire that ITV save a lot of the hour-specials then run a week of Mon/Tue/Thu/Fri hour-episodes of Corrie at 8.30pm, with a 30-minute stripped show in the 9.30pm slot.

This would also leave a consistent hour-long 7.30pm slot for pilots of entertainment formats or other shows.

Obviously this is quite a radical departure but it is the most consistent, symmetrical schedule I can think of that features each soap having its own, fixed slot on regular days and which does not clash with the BBC, apart from with Holby City on Tuesdays. However the BBC could easily move Holby to 7.30pm on Wednesday nights with no Corrie there anymore.

Ad campaigns would ramify Half Eight is Corrie Time, or some sh*t like that.

Reality is though filling that hour of TV a night is expensive. At the moment the only hour-long slot in early-prime time they're really having to fill is Tuesdays at 8pm - and that is failing miserably. Indeed I wouldn't be too surprised to see Corrie and Emmerdale propping up that hour as well soon.

Personally I'd like Emmerdale and Corrie in the 7pm hour, then a greater mix of programming from 8pm - but unfortunately until ITV is feeling flush again, it's unlikely to happen. Their priority IMO has to be the weekend, especially through the Spring and Summer.

Britain's Got Talent and the World Cup apart, they've got nothing really which can bring anything close to the ratings of The X Factor and Dancing on Ice on Sundays especially from April through to August - and I imagine next year they'll probably just burn off the remaining Heartbeat and The Royal episodes rather than try and expand on their increasingly dominant position as the place for Sunday night entertainment.

There is no way Corrie will move from 7.30pm on Fridays - they would be mad to move it from another well established slot. Tonight will obviously go at 8pm as usual.

Also I cannot see them cutting down on Corrie or Emmerdale episodes anytime soon- the only change I could see happening is possibly moving Emmerdale back to an hour on a Tuesday and Corrie going at 8pm on Thursday. They might even have an hour of Corrie on Thursdays at 8 if they did drop one of the Friday episodes but id be amazed if that happened.

So for those who still think ITV is rubbish:



Compare those figures with BBC1's top ten programmes, the majority of which are around the 5m mark.

Also note the ITV2 repeats and programmes in the 'Satellite' category (which includes Freeview) - I can't see anything from the BBC on there, apart from EastEnders.

Perhaps you should revise the differences between quality and popularity. Tesco Value medium sliced white bread is very popular. That doesn't mean it's better than its competitors.