ITC Publishes 1995 Performance Reviews
The ITC has today published its 1995 Performance Reviews of the ITV companies, Channel 4, GMTV and Teletext.
The reviews indicate general satisfaction with the performance of ITV and Channel 4, but there are a number of problems concerning the broadcasters which the ITC are not satisfied with. The major concern of the ITC regards the growing trend towards co-produced or co-commissioned regional programmes on ITV which it believes dilutes the local content and appeal of such programmes – Granada (with LWT), HTV (with cable and satellite channels) and Meridian (with Anglia) were especially criticised for this. The ITC intends to monitor this situation to ensure that there is no reduction in the regional character of the ITV services.
In terms of ITV’s programming the ITC noted a significant shift in the balance of schedules towards more entertainment-led programmes – there were higher levels of drama, entertainment and light factual programming and less documentary and arts output. The less obviously popular programming such as education, religion and arts was often in the margins of the schedule.
More specifically there were criticisms regarding the amount of police and crime programmes on ITV, a view supported by the ITC’s Viewer’s Consultative Councils. Police, Camera, Action! was singled out for being sub-standard due to much of it consisting simply of traffic police video recordings with a voice-over commentary. The special live weekend edition of the show was somewhat of a failure since no crimes were actually committed during the programme. Concern was also felt about issues of privacy which were raised in these programmes through use of surveillance cameras.
Commenting on ITV’s entertainment output the ITC said that the two most popular dramas, The Upper Hand and Mr Bean, had come to an end with no sign of replacements of comparable appeal. Saturday evening schedules were also criticised as being ‘rather tired’.
The ITC noticed that the proportion of originally commissioned material on Channel 4 has declined since 1994 with a corresponding increase in the amount of repeats shown. Original drama commissions did however increase in 1995 and Hearts and Mind, The Politician’s Wife and Jake’s Progress were welcomed.
GMTV was praised for its improving news output and the quality of its children’s programming. The ITC believed however that there had been an over-provision of children’s entertainment at the expense of factual material.
Of the regional ITV companies Carlton was commended for providing more new peak-time titles than any other licensee as was Central for ‘contributions of popular high quality programming to the network’. Granada was criticised however for moving production of ‘This Morning’ to London, which the ITC felt went against the ideals of regional programming. HTV was especially censured for the weakness of HTV West’s performance: this was due to too many co-produced programmes and a reliance on repeats to meet minimum requirements for regional scheduling. The ITC believed that LWT relied too heavily on formulas with proven-success, though new formats and ideas are being explored to bring new offerings to schedules, and Meridian was criticised for producing few shows for network screening.
ITC: 0171 255 3000