ITV's 50th Birthday Celebrations

Well, I watched it in Wiltshire; and numerous other people around the country did too.

Why can't people accept that Regional idents and Continuity are never going to come back on our screens? Face the facts ITV has to compete with 200 channels for ratings and advertising revenue, so it has to cut costs, hence we have a national ITV identity and that one company now owns most of the ITV regions.

Now you may say it is ITV's fault for showing naff programmes, yes to an extent this could be true, but we only have ourselves to blame, we're the ones who are buying our Freeview boxes, getting our Sky dishes and having our gardens dug up for Cable and once you see it, you'll find something you like and probably stick with that service and leaving out ITV.

Granted the standard of programming isn't as good as it was once was, it can do better, but for a commercial channel trying to compete in an overcrowded market place I think it does well to provide us with Drama, Entertainment and a good regional service, more than what is offered by the BBC, which WE have to pay for.

I really do wish people would give ITV a break, and people having a go at Charles Allen, granted he isn't popular for many reasons, but guess what folks, he is the CEO of a big Media giant that has to make £100 million worth of cutbacks in order to finance programmes and to make sure it can survive in the long term. It's not always Allen's fault that some programmes are crap, if you want to blame anyone, blame the people who are comissioning them, such as Nigel Pickard etc, or the people who actually make them.

ITV won't be as good as it once was, but those were the days when BBC1 and BBC2 were the only other choices available, ITV is no longer a monopoly, it is competing with BSkyB for advertising and revenue, funded by the 7 million people who wish to pay for extra channels and to watch ITV less.

[/Rant]

(Regarding some of the responses to my earlier post)

OK - let me get a couple of things straight for people trying to 'defend' ITV.

Firstly, I would in no way suggest ITV don't have at least SOME good programming - mainly in the drama category. Nor did I suggest they haven't got a lot to celebrate about the last 50 years.
I also understand how difficult it must be to compete in this new age of digital television.

I have three major problems with ITV right now.

1) To me, the general 'flow' and 'feel' of the channel is as noticeable as the programming itself. Here, ITV have really sunk to depths
- the relentless and intrusive promotion, whether over end credits or otherwise (yes, I know they have to advertise their programmes, but nothing gets me more than when they have to tell you what's coming next AFTER the credits have finished because they have just taken up the entire end credit sequence telling you what's coming up TONIGHT...)
- the way that the continuity announcers seem to 'gossip' with the viewers rather than 'announce' like they are supposed to.
- the fact that every other programme seems to have a sponsor, which is to me just an insulting form of advertising.

2) The way they take advantage of groups of viewers and leave others out in the cold.
I don't want to offend anybody here, but a lot of viewers of the X-Factor, Hell's Kitchen, I'm A Celebrity... etc easily become obsessed with these shows and follow them (along with the live streams on ITV2) like zombies. Meanwhile, viewers like myself who can't stand these types of shows cannot get away from them, as they are plastered all over half of their other programming, especially daytime.

3) What they have done to ITN/ITV News - pretty self-explanatory I think....

The fact is, ITV knew they had to compete, but they have tried to take the cheap, easy way out. Now look at this sorry excuse for a network.

I'm not sure that I agree on this, especially the sponsership, it's a great way to make money when Advertisers don't want to pay as much due to people flicking during the adverts. This way they can make more money that they can put back into programming.

It is a bit dimeaning when they run the ECP menu and then the next slide afterwards.

This is my main concern programming. Some of them I like, for example daytime has grown since September with the Paul O Grady show, moving Des & Mel, the continuation of This Morning and with programmes like Too Many Cooks and 60 Minute Makeover that fill an hour's slot without it feeling like an hour (something other programmes do badly).

To other areas of the schedule, soaps for example I don't mind them having them on all week, it's nothing to do with me, I don't watch them but the way they use them. Five have it simply with an hour of soaps 5 days a week, where as ITV choose to put them on Sunday, then every other day and two on a monday, etc.

The dramas are good but every drama seems to be about the police, murders or crime, or at the moment doctors going to live in villages and setting up little practices.
I would like to see them experiment more in this way, try something totally diverse, even if they end up putting it onto ITV2.

They seem to be testing comedy, though they seem to put programmes that could be family comedies with no swearing or sexual references in them into the 10pm slot.



I agree with this to some extent. They do tend to create some rubbish, I'm ok with a couple of reality shows in a year, and I must admit I did find myself watching these last year. I'm much more against these awful programmes that try and leap onto the band wagon of reality, but is simply awful. Such as drop the celebrity, scream... and this planned celebrity wrestling.

For a saturday night they should try and aim back to actual entertainment programming rather than trying to hook people. Look for talent instead of getting some F list celeb to do something to try and get them into the public eye.

I'd much rather see ITV turn ITV2 into a young channel filled with everything from celebrity news to it's own comedies and dramas, just like the BBC are doing with BBC Three, though obviously the extra programming picks up viewers, especially when they have a massive final for Pop Idol or the X Factor and a mass audience turn over.



I wouldn't say that ITV News has ruined the ITN brand though as you go on to say, they do try and do things on the cheap. Surely there are ways to improve the service as a whole whilst saving money.

For example finding journalists to work in countries so that they have a couple of ITN journalists in countries that they could call up on if they needed to.
Yet instead of paying them to live there, do a little deal with broadcasters in the country so that ITN journalists work majorly for the other broadcaster and can also use that broadcasters facilities and their correspondant if they need to for lives or reports. Perhaps in return the broadcasters could use the ITV News footage to dub over, etc.

It would be nice for ITV to put in more money, but at the end of the day they make all of their money from the advertising revenue and like any business they're trying to make as much money as possible.

Yeah,but if they had more regions,then they'd have more viewers.

how?

Well,LWT sounds like it was popular.

Are you sure that 'sponsors' actually pay less than to advertise during the break? I would have thought it costs more...


It is VERY demeaning!!!


This is another example of ITV taking an easy way out - Emmerdale on six bloody times a week, and Coronation Street five (with of course two episodes on Monday). Rather than experiment with quality new programming, they rely on the soaps that they know already please the 'loyal' viewers - fans HAVE to watch all the episodes, because if they miss one it screws the story up for them

I'm sorry but How the f*ck would they? You have to remember ITV is a business, which has to survive, if it proved profitable to keep regional presentation they probably would, but it's likely to be making a loss and that it makes business sense to employ a few people in London who are doing the same job at One tranmission centre, not four or five.

Granted the standard of continuity isn't brilliant, it could be improved, but face the facts we are stuck with it, everyone knew that we'd be in this situation of having a national ITV identity years ago. ITV is no longer in the same TV world as it used to and the TV world you'd like it to be.

Even if ITV had 'more regions' we'd still be in the same position in what we are now. It wouldn't make much difference.

Well said nwtv. Some people will never realise this.

You've misunderstood. With ITV charging a lot for advertising, and more people flicking between ads or going to the toilet, etc, it's better for the business as more people would see the sponsership bumpers, mainly for the fact that they are right before and after every part of the programme. Even if you flicked as soon as the part ended you'd see it at the start and most probably before the next part.



And I apologise for my awful spelling of the word demeaning!



Yeah. It's such a shame that they can't keep them in one spot and add programmes between or following them to give a different style of programme rather than tonight with trevor mcdonald.
As Des O Connor said on Today with Des & Mel to guest Lee Mack ( who starred in the original Sketch Show on ITV, and is now starring in the US prime time version with Kelsey Grammar), isn't it a shame that a programme that is going out prime time in the US was pushed around the schedules and late at night over here.

Lee Mack said that he couldn't really say anything, but what he did say was that 'It's ITV!', and that makes sense, whether he meant that's how ITV do things or that he was on an ITV programme at that moment.

And one thing that he did say was that ITV (or any UK channel) may end up buying back the programme if it's successful in the US as it's got Kelsey Grammar starring in it, even though they are the same jokes tweaked for an American audience!

That is EXACTLY how ITV do things - they have their lovely core line of shows which will always be around (namely Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Heartbeat and Where The Heart Is, and of course any spare-of-the-moment 'reality' shows), and everything else gets either shuffled around, axed without being given a proper chance, or just treated like crap!

I remember back to when Coronation Street was on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and Emmerdale Tuesday and Thursday.
This was also when we had proper prime-time gameshows, and before that hideous excuse for a news programme 'Tonight with Trevor McDonald' came along. Now THAT was proper prime-time ITV!!!