Interview – Andrew Chowns, ITV2 Project Director
The launch of ITV2, ITV’s digital terrestrial channel, is billed as an opportunity for advertisers to reach an audience ITV would die for – young, predominantly upmarket male light viewers who are interested in sport, music and light entertainment. While precise details of programming are still scarce, ITV2 has announced the kind of shows it will be running (see ITV Unveils Digital Details) and who it would like to be watching them.
The question is, however, will the channel merely end up as a barely-watched, poor relative of its big brother with little distinctive programming and no real “crowd drawers” or will it develop into an innovative, popular channel with quality shows which cater for a neglected audience?
The overall aim in launching ITV2, according to Chowns, is to enhance ITV, provide an opportunity to “pay particular attention to an audience which ITV finds hard to reach” and allow programmes to “stretch out a bit”. Chowns believes that sport will be a particular beneficiary of this: there will be the opportunity to make more use of ITV’s football and rugby union rights and sports such as golf, tennis and snooker which are not time limited and therefore difficult to schedule on a mainstream channel. There may also be room to show live football and rugby games which can find no space on ITV.
ITV2 has drawn up a list of “ten reasons to watch” which it hopes will prove to advertisers that the channel is worth investing in. One of these is to describe ITV2 as “the nation’s video recorder” – that is, to schedule some ITV shows at times of the day when certain people would be likely to watch them – “placing programmes at certain points in the ITV2 schedule to catch people who have never had the opportunity to get interested in them before.” In the South East, for example, people get home from work later and so miss key parts of the schedule. Chowns is not phased by the fact the most of the population now own a video recorder – he believes many forget or cannot be bothered to set their VCRs.
This policy is also aimed at allowing people to catch up with a programme they may have missed a few days after they have been shown. Archive shows may be broadcast in order to link them to a new series for example, but Chowns says that it will not be an archive channel – he describes this feature as “time shift not decade shift”.
When the channel first launches (scheduled for 1 November) it will broadcast between 4pm and 2am on weekdays and 9:30am to 2am at the weekends – about 85 hours per week. Chowns stresses that it does not wish to be overambitious in its programming and so will wait until the channel is better established before broadcasting 24-hours per day – “we don’t want to look like a channel which is endlessly recycling the same material over and over again”.
ITV2 will benefit from cross-promotions off ITV, in the form of short trailers in between programmes. Chowns is, however, adamant that the channel “must make its name with distinctive new programmes of its own” and, because ITV2 is part of the “ITV family”, viewers will be expecting programmes of a decent quality. Whilst the channel will have a “familiar” on-screen look he wants ITV2 to create its own character and will be investing in bringing in young new presenters. Chowns is also very keen that ITV2 should look young on screen – both in terms of personalities and graphic presentation.
It is also planned that the programmes which make it from ITV onto ITV2 will be the ones aimed at a younger audience – for example, Catherine Cookson dramas would not fit into ITV2 whilst something like Seesaw would. Chowns admits that ITV struggles to develop new comedy and new sitcoms, mainly because of having to put them into the heart of the peaktime schedule. He thinks ITV2 will give them the breathing place they need to develop.
ITV2 is also billed as “a time to think on Sunday evenings” – a slot which is currently dominated by popular drama on the main terrestrial channels. ITV2 wants to offer an alternative to this and a key part of this is a news review programme. What makes this strand especially important is that there is no other news offering on ITV2.
Chowns says that ITV2 will cost £28m in its first year, including all start-up costs. Most of the ITV channels will be contributing towards this, except Ulster and Scottish who will be launching their own digital terrestrial TV services. Chowns would not predict the number of ITV2 viewers after the first year though it would be fair to say that the channel would be extremely pleased if it achieved the audience levels which are being predicted for BDB (290,000 after first year on-air).
Chowns does not believe that there is contradiction in ITV2’s statement that it will not be a niche channel though it will be aimed at light male viewers. He says it will not be a niche channel like MTV or UK Living because there will be “something for everyone.” However, because ITV’s audience is skewed towards a female, older viewer he believes ITV2 will “rebalance” the imbalance.
Whilst only 30% of ITV2’s launch schedule will be original programmes, Chowns does not see this as a put-off for audiences. He says it does not mean that 70% of the programming will be repeats – there will be acquired programmes such as US shows, movies and soaps. He does admit though that there will be “quite a lot of repeats” but he sees this as a positive because of the time-shift factor – that is, a service for people who have missed a programme. Chowns also believes it will provide an opportunity for established ITV dramas to be broadcast in genuine widescreen for the first time – a new technology which he believes will create a “wow look at that factor.” Whether the public will be willing to pay around the £1,000 mark for a new telly is, however, debatable.
Chowns is proud of the fact that ITV2’s programming cost per hour will be more than for cable and satellite channels – some of the strands will be long-running magazine shows which have a high volume but low costs, whilst there will also be major entertainment shows where the cost may be as high as £50,000 per hour. Chowns comments:”where it is appropriate we will put serious money behind it.”
ITV2’s plans for selling ads are still being formed and Chowns would not comment on whether sales will be handled in-house or farmed out to one or more of the ITV sales houses. Any rumours surrounding this issue at present are, according to him, “pure speculation.” In terms of ad prices, Chowns says that this will be left up to whoever takes over the sales and no policy has yet been formed. There is no doubt however that a younger, more upmarket audience will appeal to advertisers who wish to reach the early adopter viewers of ITV2.
The question is, as always, whether ITV2 will deliver on its promises. Advertisers have been let down before by the performances of new channels which talk a good game before launch and the first ITV2 viewing figures will make very interesting reading indeed.