ITV Discussion Thread

I really don't think The Hour will be here this time next year, not in its current format/time slot anyway.

They have only just got rid of the Sunday soap hour and no way should it return! Corrie was ok on a Sunday but then when they started showing Emmerdale as well as having it every weeknight it was just overkill.

It's been a few years now Jez - I think before they axed the Wednesday Corrie. In theory it was a great idea, just as clearing the 8pm hour of soaps is too, but in practice other than Dancing on Ice in the Winter the 7pm hour on Sunday brings in poor ratings, even at the moment for the lead in to The X Factor - and over the summer ITV just collapsed on Sundays, a night they used to win without question.

What about back in the 1980's and early 90s?

I seem to remember it used to be like this:

6pm Bullseye
6.30 ITN news
6.45 Highway
7.15 Gameshow
7.45 Drama/film
10p, Spitting imagine/comedy
10.30 south bank Show

I just cant see how that was a strong line up either.

Spitting Imagine? Is that a remix of John Lennon's famous album?

Aye, but if they just used their brains, Sunday could become a great night of entertainment and drama

1730 ITV News and Weather
1745 Regional News and Weather
1815 You've Been Framed, Animals Do the Wildest Things, TV Burp, Other Comedies (Not repeats)
1845 The Krypton Factor, All Star Family Fortunes, Odd One In, The X Factor Results
1930 The Lakes, The Dales, Little England, About Britain
2000 Primeval, Doc Martin, Downton Abbey, Wild At Heart, Other British Drama Series'
2100 The Jonathan Ross Show, Paul O'Grady Live, Piers Morgan Life Stories
2200 British Comedies
2230 News Update; Weather
2245 US Drama Series'

And if you used your brain you'd see your pre-8pm schedule would struggle to break 3m, never mind 4m - while restoring the soap hour doubles that.

I was a big advocate of moving the soaps back when they did air on Sundays and on paper it was a good idea to boost weekend entertainment by expanding into Sunday night - but the reality is bar Dancing on Ice, The X Factor results and to a lesser extent The Cube they find themselves really exposed now and are allowing Countryfile to mop up the viewers for BBC1.

In theory I think most of us would agree that ideally we'd have no soaps at weekends and no soaps after 8pm in the week - but that's not going to happen anytime soon (unless some media tycoon buys ITV and splashes the cash to enable it too!). Therefore at the moment I'd rather lose an hour of soap from the 8pm hour in the week and have it move back to Sundays where it fits a bit neater into the schedule.

How are you going to pay for such a jam packed schedule?
The pre-8pm schedule would be beaten greatly by BBC1 as would the post 9pm schedule which is a green light for the BBC to air major drama there. This schedule would be a very costly flop almost entirely.

Well, it was, Highway was no problem because they were obliged to show it there by law and BBC1 showed Songs of Praise at the same time so there was no advantage for either channel. And the two hours of drama between eight and ten were always big hits, it was something Greg Dyke was big on when he was running LWT with an hour of family drama, like Forever Green or the Darling Buds of May, at eight, and then a more adult drama like Poirot or Jeeves and Wooster at nine, which absolutely thrashed the BBC. ITV had a great line-up of popular drama. And the 10pm comedy slot was an established part of the schedule. It sounds crap if you're just going to baldly say "drama", the dramas themselves were huge.

In fact I was digging around in the bottom of a wardrobe at the weekend and found a load of stuff I photocopied out of newspapers in the mid-nineties, icnluding the ITC Performance Reviews for 1996, where the ITC said that there was too much drama on ITV as there was a drama at 9pm seven days a week quite often, and they said that scheduling was too mundane. Incredible to think of it now, given how poor ITV's current drama line-up is. ITV drama really was lording it over the Beeb in those days, they had hours and hours of it.

But yes, it would be far better for all concerned to out the soaps back on Sundays, because pre-watershed weeknights are awful at the moment, there's simply no room for anything with this traffic jam of soaps, and that's with only one extra Corrie a week then there was ten years ago. And the scheduling of both soaps at the moment is an absolute mess, there's no logic about it at all, you simply can't answer the simple question "When is Coronation Street on?". Also there's no need for six Emmerdales a week, they only do it because they can.

I think that maybe soaps should disappear from Friday night line up as then when Weekend starts.

* Sunday - Thursday for Emmerdale 5 sidesteps a week
* Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, 4 days a week.

that would free up Fridays for weekend programmes

I wasn't aware of that, you find out something new everyday. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the 4 episodes of Emmerdale and Corrie it is then. With the News, it all depends on how much gets cut back in the next Broadcasting Act methinks...

As for hitting Soaps on the other commercial channels, I agree with you...so what!

Venon Kay to host a new version of Play Your Cards Right.
http://www.metro.co.uk/tv/878815-vernon-kay-to-host-new-version-of-play-your-cards-right