ITV ’99: Not Quite 00Heaven But May Have A Licence To Thrill

Agency reaction has been fairly positive to the ITV ’99 schedule that was unveiled yesterday (see ITV – Coming From The Heart).

Shaun Jordan, associate director at BBJ, was pleased with the sports coverage ITV had on offer, including the Champions’ League “which, providing Man Utd and Arsenal do well in the competition, should pull in the viewers”. He was more cautious regarding ITV’s link up with Carsey Werner for the development of new sitcom That 70s Show saying: “American audiences have a different sense of humour compared to the British, it may be difficult for the producers to write a successful British sitcom.”

He also noted that “strong competition has made ITV realise they were losing viewers and they have made changes to rectify that. In terms of enabling audiences to grow and maintaining them we will have to wait and see if this schedule can do that. He was less concerned about the News At Ten move, saying: “It offers greater flexibility in the schedule, whereas before if the channel were showing a movie premiere and it was split by News At Ten it was difficult to hold onto viewers during the forty minute gap”.

John Baylon, TV Buyer at Leo Burnett, was happy with the ITV deal with MGM Television that gives the exclusive rights to all the James Bonds films: “James Bond always does well for the network. The deal is especially good as they will premiering Tomorrow Never Dies and the new one currently in production before any other station”.

Baylon was not so hot about the decision to draft in American script writers to produce an ITV sitcom: “They seem to be following Channel 4’s decision to import in sitcoms, which have done okay for that channel but in the case of Veronica’s Closet and Dharma & Greg aren’t really pulling in the viewers and seem to be nothing more than late night filler programmes”. He was also wary of the move for News At Ten saying it was okay to move the programme when ITV has the occasional movie premiere but a wholesale move might not work as they will struggle to fill the 10pm airtime.

Andrew Canter, broadcast director at Mediapolis, was quietly optimistic with the new schedule, particularly liking the MGM deal: “The more exclusive deals the better”. The jury was out however on the US sitcom tie up “what is successful in the US may not necessarily be successful in the UK”. He had strong views regarding the News At Ten move stating: “News At Ten is still the highest rating commercial news programme”. Canter agreed with John Baylon that it would be okay to move the programme occasionally for movie premieres but believes that it should stay in its current slot.