The People's Channel

This, of all the programmes in the series, shows just how brilliant ITV used to be capable of being, and how much it has slid down the pan.

An interesting retrospective, but a bit of an own-goal the way things have changed.

Now they're introducing a black and white clip as being from 1987.[/quote]

Yes i saw that too.Not enough about ALL the ITV regions .UTV and Channel haven't been featured.

Ooh interesting, about the ITV/On Digital failure, alot about Sky getting into the market and why from the mouth of Charles Allen on why a federal ITV structure doesn't work, which (I'm not kidding here) makes good business sense.

As I said you learn something new every week.

But I wonder if UTV was asked, or would they just not co-operate.

They never appear to have got over the spat over the use of the ITV name (which UTV didn't and doesn't want to use anyway) or the one with GMTV which means the brealkfast channel is never advertised in the UTV region.

I bet you all liked that map of the regions, that then gradually merged together in order (starting with YTTTV) to what we have now. It looked to me to be factually correct in every way and acknowledged UTV, SMG & Channel as being seperate

But he's right It does make good business sense!

Yeah I know that and you know that, but not every Tom, Dick and Harry does, as you get many types who would argue that having all ITV stations fully regional would be better, if ITV was still a monopoly then I could back up this arguement, but as it has to compete with BSkyB, then this federal system loses money. Also the fact that Charles Allen is a hate figure amongst these forums doesn't help either.

I know this was supposed to News & Current Affairs, but it did Sport, Digital and the Future of ITV which made me surprised and well entertained.

Overall the first couple of episodes were a bit shaky with Melvyn's opinions, but it has been a well made and quite balanced series in terms of Point of view. Also good to see non-Granada companies such as Thames and TV-am not being erased out of ITV's history.

Was it just me - or did this series feel more like a nostalgic obituary for ITV rather than a celebration?

For me the contrast between the ITV of the 70s and 80s and the ITV of today was really sad... Quality drama (massively outdoing the BBC with some of the major dramas like Brideshead) and producing real quality current affairs (This Week, World In Action) then, Midsomer Murders and Tonight with Trevor MacDonald now...

The interesting thing was how they struggled to show modern day equivalents for so many of the groundbreaking shows of yesteryear. (Where would Disappearing World, the single documentaries previously housed in strands like First Tuesday etc. now live?)

The whole series left me with a feeling of what we lost, and how it really started in 1992... Sure it wasn't just the franchise round - multi-channel etc. can't be ignored - but ITV isn't what it was. Just watch ITV3 to see what it used to produce...

Does anyone know if there will be any other ITV50 programmes coming soon?

Yep - but it is interesting to balance business sense with public responsibility. After all ITV is given a large chunk of broadcast spectrum to make money with. They don't have a right to broadcast, it is a privilege granted by us...

quite - i only watched the first 2 shows in this series - and today's episode, and i seem to recall they managed to shoe horn more contemporary clips into the first 2 shows, and yet they obviously couldn’t find much to shoe horn in after they'd mentioned tonight with trev.

had the series been called 50 years of granada, then it might not have seemed such a let down to me. i understand charles allen has huge influence at itv network, but surely a representative from itv network centre would have been better placed in this doco at some points.

i found it slightly disapointing as they only showed a few brief clips of the modern itv news. i thought they might show how the technology has evolved over the years.