Kids shows axed from ITV1 on Saturday mornings!

Saturday Cooks, the 'new' cookery show on ITV1 starts on Saturday 10th June between 9.25 and 10.50. Holly and Stephen's Saturday Showdown moves to CITV - so now neither BBC1 or ITV1 will have traditional Saturday morning shows - both in favour of cookery.

This is the story on the cookery shows:
Anthony Worrall Thompson and the company who make Saturday Kitchen, Prospect Pictures have been stolen by ITV to make Saturday Cooks - so basically theyve taken the whole show.

So the BBC has employed Cactus TV to make the new Saturday Kitchen with James Martin, which starts on June 24th. Presumably on June 10th and 17th there will be some best of shows.

Prospect Pictures were also developing Sunday Brunch for the BBC but they will now make Sunday Feast with Anneka Rice and Andi Peters on ITV. The BBC wanted Andi for Sunday Brunch. The BBC are apparently very angry about all of this - hardly surprising, why cant ITV think up anything original?!

While the BBC may be publicly angry, I bet privately they're sniggering about how they tricked ITV into "poaching" the useless Andi Peters, thus ensuring that ITV's show will be ****.

Is cookery the new rock and roll or something ?

I've thought for a long time that a version of Jenni Barnett's Good Food Live on UKTV Food would do well on BBC ONE 1200-1300. But then anything would be better than yet another auction crap show with Lorne Spicer. I'm amazed how so many programmes which are essentially the same can be on daytime on BBC ONE and TWO.

A personal finance/energy saving/hints and tips show would be good too. Could be Really Useful.

It looks like it.

It's like the Paul O'Grady Show allover again, except this time ITV are Channel 4 and BBC1 is ITV1!

At least this news means the Sunday daytime ITV1 schedule is starting to have some actual programmes commissioned for it, rather than just running with fillers and odds and ends every week

Also, assuming that this move is permanent, will BBC2 bother to make much of an effort with a new Saturday kids show this Autumn, considering the age of Saturday Morning kids TV seems to be dead amd buried, or just cobble something together

so what do the kids surpose to watch??

What?

To translate, I believe our numeric friend is asking "what will the kids watch on saturday mornings now?"

Or more precisely, what can he/she watch on Saturday's no doubt.

This mean no more Saturday Children programmes on ITV anymore?

This is very sad news.

There was no need for BBC1's children's programmes to move, but ITV's copycat behaviour penalises non-digital viewers.

And I have to ask, who the hell wants to watch cookery shows at the weekend? Aren't there enough during the week?

I think the move was a rather sensible idea, yes I agree it's not good that the main BBC channel can't cater a Saturday morning programme anymore, but the move makes sense. I think it's rather silly that Saturday was the only day of the week when BBC1 has Kids programmes in the schedule for the morning, where as it's on BBC2 rest of the week, same goes for Breakfast but channels swapped.

It would make alot more sense if the BBC went for the RTÉ approach of sticking all Kids output on the second channel, as Weekday afternoons is now the only time you see CBBC on BBC1, I think CBeebies is only on BBC2 now, though correct me if I'm wrong. Kids have more choice these days, and I think sticking a programme on BBC2 instead of BBC1 would make little difference, as long as they're told the change of channel, then the content should be the same surely? I don't think kids are that bothered, as they have 3 channels catered for them on Freeview, 5 in total if you count Top Up TV, and about 20 on Sky/NTL/Telewest etc, BBC and ITV are only something else and don't stick out as much.



Those who can't watch them on Weekdays, or probably a bit more specific the middle aged audience on a Saturday morning who want something that isn't Sport or a kids programme, or another hour of News. I always tend to associate those people who read the Daily Mail on a Saturday, though I don't know why.

CITV is part of ITV's commitment to Public Service Broadcasting, but at the same time ITV is a commerical channel, not a charity and has to react to competition otherwise it could have a negative affect on revenues later on. Ofcom says ITV have to broadcast 8 hours a week of Childrens programming, and AIUI they're doing more than that at the moment, as long as they're doing 8 hours, no-one can stop them.

Though 5 years ago at the peak of SM:tv Live who would have thought that after 30 odd years that there would no longer be a Saturday morning kids show on ITV, maybe it was an experiment that ran for over 30 years, who knows...

Have to agree!


ITV acting really strangely at the moment - their daytime (afternoon) line up is widely seen as a failure, yet they seem to want to fill the schedules with programmes traditionally associated with daytime!

One of the ITV bosses was on about how ITV missed the boat with lifestyle programming a few years ago - what they don't seem to realise is the boat has well and truly gone!


Unfortunately one word sums up why these programmes are commissioned - "cheap"!


P.S. Just a thought, but did the arrival of T4 Saturday a couple of years back really do much damage to the ratings of BBC/ITV Saturday morning programmes. I've always assumed it didn't have the same pull as T4 Sunday!