ITV Discussion Thread

Not really, and you'd struggle getting guests day in day out anyway. It's far easier to get guests at five than it is at eleven because people don't want to mess up their evenings. And all the 5pm chat shows had other magazine stuff as well, which would look flimsy late at night, and any comedy bits of business would be run into the ground because the writers would run out of ideas immediately. It's not like in the US when these things have massive budgets with a million writers.

In addition, the fact is that at 5pm you're opposite the same shows every day and the audience has a routine, whereas at eleven o'clock the various channels are all showing different things so hardly anyone would get into the habit of watching it. Even on ITV when they're doing not much at 10.30 you'd still have to lose it when they're showing football highlights and when they're doing a big thing like Tuesday's Bin Laden stuff, so you'd never get a consistent slot. Whereas in the US all the programmes are on at the same time.

The more general point as well is that people shouldn't stay up late anyway. And I would say this even if I didn't live in a basement flat below someone who has wooden flooring and stays up past midnight when I've got work in the morning.

And who made you the police of bedtimes?

There is a significant audience out there between 10.30-12midnight and I don't believe for one minute the guests aren't around - the shows would probably be filmed aroudn 7pm anyway rather than broadcast live, and quite often you'll have Alan Carr, Jonaathan Ross and Graham Norton all filming their chatshows around the same time, usually with 3 guests each - so the guests are there. Indeed Graham Norton didn't have an issue with guests during his five day a week stint. Obviously the chat would be supplemented with features just as the 5pm shows - but not the same features of course. They'd be tailored to the audience at that time of night.

Back in the 70's Parkinson wanted to do.the us nightly chat show but the bbc said no. Ch5 jack doctory show bomed aswell.

I really don't see why a recorded programme where some film star or music industry puppet is promoting their latest film or compact disc is any better than a recorded programme where some home and car care or fashion and beauty expert is promoting a car cleaning kit or a snug fitting bra. At least owning a car cleaning kit or a wearing a good bra is something that viewers can aspire to.

Will I ever watch a Tom Cruise film or buy an Olly Murs CD? Very unlikely. Will I ever buy a car cleaning kit or a bra? Probably not. However, if my choice of late night viewing was a clip from a film and a music video or several product demonstrations and a scripted audience Q&A session, I'll take the product demonstrations and Q&A session every time.

Don't get me wrong, The Store certain isn't the greatest example of it's genre, there are already channels further up the EPG doing similar things better. It certainly isn't as bad as people are making out though. I am basing this opinion on the edition of The Store shown last night. I do fear that The Store will be shown with a very high repeat rate and I can understand that will annoy or put off would-be regular late night ITV1 viewers.

You sound like a hoot.

I'm sure I heard an interview with Graham Norton the other day where was explaining why it is so difficult doing a 5 days a week chatshow. It's not just the guests, it's the amount of work the team has to put in to come up with new ideas and material for that many shows. It's been tried several times and none have lasted.

I know it wasn't quite every night but Wogan did well to last as long as it did 3 nights a week - and that was primetime television!

Graham Norton didn't do too badly with a low budget in that timeslot on Channel 4 mind you.

The git upstairs who keeps clomping around. It's only manners.

The interview with Norton mentioned was his interview with Mark Lawson on BBC4 where he said that he'd always wanted to do a daily chat show but soon realised that, when he was doing it, it was awful, because it was a million times harder than doing a weekly show. He only did it for eighteen months before he got seriously fed up with it and it didn't really do that much for C4 either, it just got in the way of everything and diluted the big audiences he was getting once a week. And only occasionally were there big guests, quite often they'd be desperate to get anyone in and I know on a couple of occasions they were still phoning people up an hour or so before transmission.

Even if you're recording a couple of shows in advance, the schedule is a pain for the presenter and nobody wants to do it for any great length of time. And the fact is it's far easier to do a weekly show and repeat it than dilute the budget for five shows that can't be repeated.

Doesn't it just highlight Graham Norton is lazy. Plenty of big names have five day a week commitment to radio shows and while you may have to compromise on the guests, there is no reason a late night show couldn't get guests 4-5 nights a week, and the extra airtime to fill should be seen as an opportunity, not a problem, especially with the incredibly scripted state of British TV at the moment. There are practically zero outlets at the moment for off the cuff TV.

A 10:40pm chatshow would be nice just four nights a week, air for 50 minutes Untill 11:30, two guests would be fine. A news update woud be nice at 11:30, then an hour and half of other progs before The Zone at 1am-3am.

Getting 8 guests a week should be fine, there always people who want to appear on these shows, you could even get some regular guests like a comedian or something. I would air it Monday-Thursday, with Fridays been used for other things, like films etc. This would knock The Agenda (I know it's finished, but it would be nice to see a new series) out of its slot but I would move it to Sundays, at 1pm-2pm but would try to get Alastair Stewart to present it with Tom Bradby been a co-host/ regular panellist.

Quick question, are ITV using a "one itv" tag at the moment? Reason I ask is because I've seen something like that of recent & just wondered if that was an exisiting tag or a new one of the new season?