MGEITF 2003: Pickard Outlines Plans To Revitalise ITV
ITV’s director of programmes, Nigel Pickard, has outlined plans to revitalise the schedules at the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, despite news that ITV1’s programming budget for next year will remain static at around £835 million.
Speaking at this year’s Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Pickard, who took over from David Liddiment last year (see
He acknowledged that the channel has struggled to maintain its share of viewing in the face of growing competition from multichannel broadcasters and said there was room for improvement in the daytime and off-peak schedules.
However, he insisted the budget freeze would not have any negative impact on ITV’s performance and unveiled a range of new commissions as part of the channel’s autumn schedule, which he said would help make ITV the nation’s favourite television channel.
The new autumn line-up includes two new daytime quiz shows, alongside a raft of new dramas. There are also two major new popular factual series designed to help the network compete more effectively against BBC1, which overtook ITV in terms of audience share two years ago (see BBC Claims Ratings Victory Over ITV).
The first quiz, called 24 Hour Quiz, will be a Big Brother style show in which contestants are locked in house day and night and constantly bombarded with general knowledge questions until only one remains. The second, called I’m The Answer, will see participants attempt to guess the correct question to a predetermined answer.
The new dramas include an ambitious new project called Henry VIII, which will attempt to bring history’s most beguiling monarch to life in the form of Ray Winston; Boudicea, featuring ER‘s Alex Kingston; and Family, a new series set against the backdrop on the London underworld and organised crime.
There will also be a new sitcom from Frank Skinner, called Shane; and Reversals stars Sarah Parish and Marc Warrren as a couple whose personal and professional lives are turned upside-down when they switch gender.
The new popular factual programmes take the form of Holiday Showdown, which sees two families with completely opposing ideas of a good holiday sent away together for two weeks; and Take My Mother In Law, which documents the potentially explosive scenario of allowing your partner’s mother in law to live in your house.
Pickard also expressed his desire to find a new matchmaking show to replace the recently axed Blind Date. He pledged to sort out ITV’s evening news bulletin in the next six months and described the current situation of a 10pm broadcast three or four nights a week as “untenable”.
The former CBBC controller dismissed Tony Ball’s suggestion that the BBC should be forced to sell its most popular programmes to rival commercial broadcasters (see
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