Liddiment Defends Risk Taking

ITV’s director of channels, David Liddiment, has publicly rejected claims that he has been defeated by BBC1’s recent ratings domination. Writing in the Independent today, he said: “I am not about to surrender ITV1’s position as Britain’s most popular channel.”

Liddiment’s defensiveness comes after many interpreted the speech that accompanied the launch of ITV’s winter schedule last week as confirmation of a deep gloom at the network (see ITV Admits BBC Threat At Schedule Launch).

In today’s article, Liddiment wrote that he was “not saying that ITV1 does not have competitive issues with the BBC”, but pointed out that his channel continues to win in peak time and again expressed confidence in the winter line up. In echoes of his MacTaggart lecture at Edinburgh this year, he accused the press of dimissing programmes as flops when they didn’t reach the ratings expected.

Liddiment went on to defend the idea of taking risks, even those like The Premiership’s early evening timing. “Risk is a factor of ambition and both are crucial, particularly to mainstream channels.” he said, pointing to examples like Millionaire and Bob and Rose.”I’d rather have these shows and take the criticism if they “fail”, than play it safe and avoid the negative headlines.”

ITV1’s director of programmes may have confidence that scheduling can pull back the ratings, but ITV’s problems at the moment are more widespread. Major shareholder Granada announced final year results last week in which losses were reported and job cuts announced, partly due to the continuing financial drain of ITV Digital (see ITV Digital Losses Weigh Heavy On Granada). Carlton’s results, out today, while less negative, have nevertheless illustrated tough times.

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.co.uk

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