MGEITF 2006: ITV1 Rebalances Schedule After Summer To Forget
The slow death of ITV1 has been greatly exaggerated, although the channel does need to rebalance its schedule so that it does not suffer another period of discontent to compare with this summer’s. This was the message coming through loud and clear from Simon Shaps, director of television at ITV, at the 2006 MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival (MGEITF).
Shaps said that part of the problem for ITV1 during the summer, and particularly throughout a seven-week period encompassing July, was that the channel became caught between BBC One on the one hand, showing new dramas, and Channel 4 on the other, with its guaranteed ratings winner, Big Brother.
Shaps said: “We got squeezed between the BBC in that period. The BBC has been running on average about four first run dramas a night at 9pm each week, through the week, and Big Brother, longer. We got squeezed between those two schedule strategies. It goes without saying that actually for quite a while in the summer, ITV has not covered itself in glory. I think what we’re clear about and what we’ll fix is the strategy for next summer.”
Shaps argued that ITV1 has already started to address the problems encountered this summer and that it has begun to implement new strategies specifically in order to provide an equilibrium to the channel’s performance that was missing during the past couple of months. Shaps said: “It goes without saying that we’re not doing what we’re doing and have not made the changes that we have already made because we think everything is fine and dandy. We need across the schedule, and across most of the genres, to raise our game.”
In outlining the strategy that ITV’s flagship channel will implement, Shaps said: “We want a channel that is more talked about, that is more talked about not merely by its heartland audience but by lighter, more upmarket audiences and viewers who may have felt in recent years that the channel was not for them. We need to reach ABC1s, 16-34s. Our drama needs to feel fresher, more contemporary, more original. In terms of ambition, style, risk, tone of voice, in terms of the modernity of our drama, 9pm is a crucial USP Of ITV1. That drama needs to connect more to those audiences, to those people who probably feel that ITV1 drama… is a bit missable, traditional, predictable and is not as dynamic and exciting as it can be. It’s about direction.”
Shaps did point out that despite the criticism the channel has faced recently, ITV1’s audience share is equivalent to its next five commercial competitors combined. With that in mind, and with a beefed up strategy in place, it is easy to see why the channel’s autumn schedule gives Shaps some comfort in the aftermath of a turbulent time. Shaps said: ” I’m pretty comfortable with the autumn schedule. I’m pretty excited by lots of things they [the new drama team] are commissioning.”
He added that ITV would continue to commission new, top rated shows but that in the increasingly fragmented broadcast arena, channels such as ITV1 must adapt if they wish to consolidate the positions they have worked so hard to sustain. He said: “The scale of ITV, the scale of what we are, is a huge asset, and I believe a hugely sustainable asset. That scale is achieved by continuing to schedule and commission high-rating shows. Launching new high-rating shows is self-evidently more difficult than it was because there is more competition. Therefore the challenges we face as a network are greater.”
Defending the channel from accusations of inveterate populism, Shaps said: “When it is at its best, it is and it is still, [ITV1 offers] this rather unique, magical combination of these incredibly mainstream, popular but slightly less populist pieces of factual or drama entertainment and then these really surprising splashes of colour that nobody expected this rather commercial organisation wanted to schedule. We’re going to see more splashes of colour on this channel because I think in the end those are some of the things that are audience wants on ITV.”
Responding to a question from the packed audience regarding ITV launching another new channel to add to its already rather impressive roster, Shaps finished off by saying: “We’re never done, we’re looking really hard at the moment at new ideas for channels. At the moment we’re not committed to launching any particular channel anytime very soon, but we’re absolutely still looking at ideas.”
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