I think basicly that they should keep the weekday kids programming on ITV1 off air. As the classic repeats of Midsummer Murders and other programmes like that get higher ratings than the kids block.
But on ITV1 on Saturday & Sunday they should have live shows, e.g. Holly and Stephen on Saturday with MOM / S.Showdown and on Sundays another live show, with another 2 presenters. They should do it now with Saturdays, as the BBC's Saturday morning kids block has gone sh!t. (CiTV should also have live programming during half terms etc).
Grade says all kids programming will disappear from ITV1 in the future.
If OFCOM had any guts, they should be replying with "no it won't".
Just as it's important for the BBC to continue with the flagship national news bulletins alongside News 24, the same should apply to children's programming.
It's about the whole package, and having good kids TV on the main channel boosts the channel as a whole - whether you watch it or not. If they were replacing the output with programmes of value, it might be different - but frankly it's all filler programming and there is room for an hour of children's programme at some point between 3pm and 5pm everyday.
I did wonder how ITV was going to manage to show on average 8 hours of CITV programming per week this year, as there are only so many hours in the day at holiday times
But now it seems like they won't need to
ITV plan to cut kids' shows approved
ITV1 has been given the green light by Ofcom to reduce the amount of children's shows it broadcasts this year from an average of eight hours a week to about five hours a week.
The five hours each week are not subject to scheduling restrictions, and ITV1 does not need to run the programmes in its traditional afternoon weekday slot. A proportion of the programmes will run on weekends.
"Having taken into account the opinion of Ofcom, ITV confirms that children's output across 2007 will average around five hours of programming per week across ITV1 hours," said the broadcaster in a statement today. "Including GMTV, the ITV1 channel is on course to broadcast in excess of 500 hours of children's programmes in 2007.
"In addition, ITV continues to invest in the CITV channel, which includes a high volume of UK-produced material and is available to around 90% of UK children."
The broadcaster has arrived at a compromise with Ofcom after taking into account a range of factors including the restrictions on junk food and drink advertising to children, which come into force this month.
ITV said that it would continue to provide a wide range of children's programmes - including pre-school, drama, factual programming, entertainment and animation - with a "substantial proportion" of British programmes.
While ITV pledged to schedule shows at both weekends and weekdays the broadcaster added that it intended to "weight its children's output to weekends, where the children's audience can be reached more effectively on ITV1".
:-(
A former member
I still think a Saturday morning kids show should be brought back!
There doesnt seem to be much going on on ITV1 on sunday mornings, how about their first weekend morning kids show, over two days, obviously it would need more planning if it wanted a big event like SM:tv, though something smaller/simpler along the lines of Dick & Dom/Saturday Showdown would do the trick, at a guess.
Though I do think that I would prefer a big guest list, big idea kind of a show that SM:tv was. But was this just down to the pulling power of Ant & Dec?
I think basicly that they should keep the weekday kids programming on ITV1 off air. As the classic repeats of Midsummer Murders and other programmes like that get higher ratings than the kids block.