ITV Discussion Thread

I reckon Fern and Phil are ok, then again I would say that.

No doubt Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee will appear. Another show they can do together.

Looks like some axes might be getting sharpened.

Surprised Rebus is getting the chop, though it seems it's more Ken Stott's decision than ITV.


No surprises elsewhere really - it's pretty obvious most of ITV's new drama is heading straight for the axe, with Honest the only one with a chance of recommission, even though it didn't do too well itself. Worth noting though it's probably the least risky of the commissions ITV made.

Is it the fact that the programmes, whilst being risky weren't risky enough?

Scheduling can be blamed for certain shows such as Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach, but other ideas didn't hit the boat for me, and most probably others.

Should they be risking more and aiming for shows that may aim at a younger demographic, but be totally different for ITV such as going down the sci fi route?

When looking back at TV in the 60's there were commissions such as the New Avengers and The Prisoner that wouldn't be commissioned now, and instead broadcasters tend to opt for the simple Detective led drama, which I've never understood.

Is it just me that is sick of such case led dramas, or case led dramas that don't seem to match up with the sort of things that the US offer, or sometimes with ITV, they don't match up with what the BBC offer.

Even though they don't make as much drama as the BBC or ITV, I see Channel 4 as been the ones who make the riskiest moves, not always to commercial success, but they air programmes that get them talked about and lead people back into the channel, rather than going with the safe option.

The other way that you can lead with ITV is did they make too many dramas to air out at 9pm. When the other broadcasters have been having success with documentaries and factual, could ITV have had better success with something along these lines?

Looking at something from this week, if you were in charge of ITV, looking at the football and the Brits which were both provided high ratings figures, would you have dropped the adverts between the programmes, and lead straight into the News At Ten as to capitalise on the viewers, or would you air the ads to get the money knowing that many viewers would switch elsewhere, or to the BBC whilst you aired adverts?

Re: risk. Interesting point - though really the only big risk was Moving Wallpaper / Echo Beach. Though it didn't help, I don't think the scheduling on Friday's can be blamed for it being a flop, especially when it's losing viewers week on week. I do think though the original ITV1/ITV2 scheduling pattern would have been better as they'd have been less pressure on both to succeed.


C4 and to a lesser extent the BBC have had success with "youth" orientated programmes on Fridays in the past, and there is a sizeable audience there if the format is right - perhaps ITV's main problem is for years that slot has been associated with detective reruns, which actually performed very well in the slot for the channel.


As for the 9pm drama issue - possibly yes. I think alot stems back to 8pm too which we've all often said needs freeing up, and perhaps trying some pre-watershed drama, which ITV could get away with being more formulaic, would give ITV1 a better chance of success.


I think one way of solving these problems is by moving The Bill to 9pm at least once a week, filling that slot one night a week and freeing up an hour at 8pm.


Documentaries at 9pm have the problem they are by definition one-offs, so can be very hit and miss - and in some ways would have the same problem as the ITV Drama Premieres did. It shouldn't be forgotten though that these Drama Premieres did do very well for ITV most weeks - and did allow ITV to take more risks than perhaps they would with a series. The problem was though these premieres rarely were turned into series - and the ones that did were generally yet more detective series.


Factual content - if it's more Ladette for Lady, then possibly no. ITV could do alot worse though than resurrect Survivor, which kind of suffered from being directly compared to Big Brother at the time - but actually got a pretty respectable audience for ITV, and is still probably the best reality show they've produced.

Cant say im surprised by this news. I thought The Palace had already been axed? I really enjoyed the first couple of episode of that but then it went a bit boring and now ive given up. Still watching MW and EB though - looks like they could be next for the chop.

Well to be fair it was a 'source' in The Sun saying ITV plan to axe it. But ITV always say they never make a final decision until the entire series has finished airing. Of course pigs will fly before The Palace gets a second series.

According to a "source" in The Sun The X Factor results show will be moving to Sunday in the autumn, which on the one hand doesn't surprise me - but on the other I'd have thought if Simon Cowell said no, that would mean no.


The source goes on about how well Dancing on Ice has done on Sundays and insists it's not copying Strictly - but neglects to mention how moving Dancing on Ice has left a very big whole in the Saturday schedule and how ITV are struggling to get more than 3m viewers after 8pm.


It's not something I want to see - I can't see what else ITV are going to put on around 9-10pm to bring the viewers back to the channel, and secondly if the results show is moved to Sunday it's bound to be padded out to fill an hour long slot.

Why do people have ago at "The Palace"? It's not supposed to be a serious drama, just abit of escapism on a Monday night.

The same goes for "Echo Beach" on Fridays. It's supposed to be a parody of a soap, and I think it does it quite well.

I'd rather have these than repeats of Frost or Midsomer Murders.

Not sure whether it's a good or bad idea, although I can definitely see it happening. What might work in its favour is that as a result, the performance show should get a later start time on the Saturday meaning we'll have no more of these ridiculous 5.30pm starts which always occur during the earlier live shows.

If the BBC are showing Strictly though at around 5.45pm ITV1 will want to get The X Factor on air around the same time, unless they opt to move it to after Strictly instead (unlikely IMO).


One thing I would favour though is showing the audition stage over Saturdays and Sundays. It drags on for about 2 months at the moment with just one episode a week, so doubling up would mean we get into the performance stage much quicker.