ITV WINTER 1994 SCHEDULE

ITV has announced its forthcoming schedule for Winter 1994. The £186m season is aiming to attract big volume and upmarket audiences.

There was much emphasis put on new quality drama and new factual series. Over £75m is to be spent on drama series over the Winter season, including eight new series and eight returning favourites. Big new dramas include Joanna Lumley in Class Act, Richard Wilson and Jan Francis in Under The Hammer and Leslie Grantham in the police series 99-1.

Returning will be A Touch of Frost, The Bill, Minder and Peak Practice. There will be a new factual programme for Tuesday nights designed to give more visibility to documentaries on ITV, called Network First. Other new documentaries include Scotland Yard, a look at the police HQ and The Day I Nearly Died, featuring accounts from survivors of disasters. Returning will be World In Action and The Cook Report.

Sunday evenings are highlighted by the showing of a major family film, such as Honey I Shrunk The Kids and Look Who’s Talking Too, followed by drama. Movie Premieres will include Green Card Presumed Innocent, Sleeping With The Enemy and Arachnophobia. There will be five new comedy series, including the House of Windsor, set among the servants at Buckingham Palace, Roy Barraclough in Mother’s Ruin and The 10%ers gets a full series.

Marcus Plantin, presenting the new schedule, said that ITV’s aim was to win the peak-time schedule battle for every night of the week, and that the mainstay of this would be the drama slot every evening at 9pm. He also indicated that, for this schedule at least, there were no plans to move the News At Ten. With the emphasis on drama, ITV is hoping to build on its share of ABC1 viewers.

ITV Dick Emery 071 843 8217