Why are ITV putting big film premieres on ITV2?

I’ve noticed over the past few months that ITV seems to be putting a lot of their premieres of films onto ITV2, instead of on the main channel. Here are some examples:

Kong: Skull Island
The Lego Batman Movie
Suicide Squad
It (2017)

All of these movies performed decently at the box office, so why do they keep sticking these on ITV2?

Film premieres just don't have the same ratings impact any more because they are available in so many other places before hitting mainstream broadcast TV.

And those films are a better fit for ITV2.

I remember as a kid ( with possibly McDonald’s for my lunch). There were movies on a Saturday afternoon when it was ITV1 and Toyota RAV4 was the sponsor.

The movies on your list here fit the younger ITV 2 target demographic, not the main channel's. That will be why.

Because it’s ITV2 not ITV Extra Space for Things We Couldn’t Fit On

If you see the ratings you find the films that ITV2 show, notably over the weekend, tend to rate very well.

That’s part of the reason why they’ve shown Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz numerous times.

And that trick they use to fudge the advertising minutes with a cheap entertainment news filler might not go down so well with an ITV (1) audience

Lego Batman would probably do well on either channel, but on ITV it's going to be harder to fit it into a decent slot to do well.

To be fair that new bulletin is only a minute.




Agreed, especially when ITV were showing repeats of shows they had axed mere weeks before (Ninja Warrior and Through the Keyhole) which is quite cheeky.

They'd be wise to include that in the Christmas schedule.

They never seem to air many premieres during Christmas.

In 2018 I thought Minions was certain for Xmas Eve or Boxing Day, but where did they put it? 6pm on a July Saturday.

Commercially it's usually better for films to air in the run up to Christmas than Christmas itself, but often the rights probably become available in the New Year so they tend to not wait that long.

Sunday evenings in the run up to Christmas is usually a good slot for family film premieres so be interesting to see if any show up there.