News At Ten Slot Sparks Ratings War

The BBC’s decision to move its evening news programme to 10pm (see BBC To Broadcast News At Ten) is set to unleash one of the biggest ratings wars in British television history. ITV has responded to dramatic changes to BBC1’s schedule with its own arsenal of populist programming.

From 16 October ITV will broadcast extended hour-long editions of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and the network is expected to bring forward a documentary about the Queen. Other plans are believed to include moving Coronation Street to 7:40pm, and replacing Peak Practice with a repeat of A Touch of Frost.

The plans were unveiled as the BBC rushed ahead to fill the vacant News At Ten slot and pulled out sure-fire ratings winners for the launch of its new schedule. On Monday 16 October the Nine O’Clock News slot will be filled by first episode of the new series of The Royale Family back-to-back with the first episode of the last series of One Foot In The Grave.

The terrestrial television premiere of Men In Black, which had been saved for the Christmas schedules, will now be shown on Tuesday night. And Friday will see the BBC2 comedy Have I Got News For You? moved to BBC1, followed by a repeat of The Vicar of Dibley.

The BBC has been criticised by both ISBA and Chris Smith, and ITV has accused the Corporation of betraying its public service values (see News At Ten Conflict Shows Need For Single Regulator, Says ISBA). The move can be seen as a shift towards the repositioning of BBC1 as an entertainment channel (see BBC May Move Nine O’Clock News To Ten) and it has received particular criticism for its decision to move Panorama to 10:15pm on a Sunday night. Mark Thompson, director of television at the BBC, told Radio 4 yesterday that the channel was not abandoning its commitment to news and current affairs programming.

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