ITV given permission to make cuts

No quite - the opposite. Until all viewers can receive ITV2 and ITV3 I think that all the "public service" required stuff should remain on ITV1 - where all of the public, whether analogue or digital, can watch it. If anything ITV2 and ITV3 should be allowed to be more commercial, not ITV1.

Whilst Britain now has over 50% of TV viewing households with at least one TV connected to a digital source, that isn't anywhere near 100% of households, nor 100% of TVs. Once it gets to 80% or 90% then I think you can consider ITV2 or ITV3 as "more equal" to ITV1 - but at the moment, ITV1 is still the only ITV channel that a lot of people receive.

It is still benefitting from an extremely lucrative position - i.e. being the 3rd of 5 analogue channels - for which the ITV companies don't pay US (i.e. the tax payer who benefits from the money they pay to the government for the right to broadcast on analogue) a huge amount of money... For this lucrative position I think there should be some benefit to us as the public, not just to ITV shareholders. Why should ITV have reduce public service commitments? Have we, the public, become less "service worthy"? Are ITV's shareholders now more important than us?

Don't forget that we pay a lot for ITV - albeit indirectly - it isn't "free". Everytime a product that has been advertised on TV is purchased, you are paying for ITV, except that some of this money goes to shareholders, not to make programmes... This "licence to print money" as it was once described must surely have some restrictions - so that the public benefits, after all, they are technically "our" airwaves they are lucky enough to be broadcasting on.

100% agree with you there. I don't have digital, I don't have Sky because we can't afford it. We were going to get Freeview, but we can't because of something to do with the ariel near our area doesn't transmit it or something like that. We can't even get Five down here.

ITV1 should not be allowed to cut ANY of its public service obligations.
If they want to cut the regional,childrens and religious programming, they should give up the regional franchises and become a digital only FTA or subscription channel.
ITV1 along with BBC,Channel4 and Channel5 in most areas are forced on the public with analgue tellys and they should serve the WHOLE of the viewing public with NO exceptions.

P.S I know this thread is quite old but I haven't logged to this site for a while.

i'm sorry, but it would be more than my jobs worth not to record your faux-pas in the tv forum watch log book. rules is rules.

The ITV Chart Show was absolutely superb - It would be great if it was to return, I enjoyed it very much so.

If you ask me, CITV's been in a slump after that rush for anime that it went through with Pokemon, Digimon and CardCaptor(S) Sakura. I meen, they didn't even air the finalé of CCS on Citv and it was by pure chance I saw it on the day they shoved it into.

I don't even want to think about Digimon Tamers (1 episode, ONE FREAKING EPISODE!) and the less said about Sonic X, the better (13 epis, just as bad as "Up on the roof"'s treatment of Sailor Moon).

But besides my Otacon tendicies, if they ax the tots programs (which are carp) and tighten up MOM (as so far I get my New Captain Scarlet fix quicker) i'll be up in arms over this.

I would even go as far as to say ITV should not be allowed to drop any of its PSB obligations even after switch-off. The reason is simple - a level playing field is not in the interests of quality viewing. Ofcom exists only to pander to the broadcasters' business interest and, let's be honest, doesn't give a stuff about the audience.

Perhaps we should look at ways of keeping BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and C5 "special"; ie. more readily available than other channels after analogue switch-off. One idea would be integrated digital TVs which can only receive the basic five. If you wanted more, you'd have to get a set top box.

Does anyone actually watch the religous programming, and in a secular country such as ours should religous programming be a public service obligation?

Well why the hec, don't ITV show channel 4 type religous programs? My favouite hymes is carp. Religous programs can be good if there done properly.

Religous programmes have no place on main TV! Theres plenty of dedicated channels or theres BBC Two. They are so dull.

As much as we would all like to see no PSB commitments dropped from ITV, it's not going to happen, as ITV don't want to make these programmes, simple reason, they don't bring in the viewers. Frankly if I'm watching TV on a Sunday morning I'd rather watch a channel offering me Entertainment rather than one offering me Religion.

If Religion and others forms of PSB were popular with the audience and made the profits then ITV would be happy to make them, but they don't, they lose ITV money if anything, as they bring in low audiences and few advertisers.

If ITV was still a commercial monopoly like it used to be until Sky made it's impact and when Channel 4 went Independent, then we wouldn't have this problem, as people watched the Religious programming as it was there. Say if 'Highway' was still being shown on Sunday nights, I know I'd rather be watching 'The Simpsons' on Sky One or something like that.

It was 4 eps of digimon actually,but they can not do that to Digimon.
The last cardcaptors was weird really.

Not all of the tots programmes are rubbish,tiny planets is great but they only show it in the Summer! The people off Fun Song Factory should be singing Tragedy and One for Sorrow!