PA
1.Restore all the ITV regional companies except Carlton, rename Granada as ' North West Television ' . Start negotiating with the RTL Group to acquire the rights to the Thames brand and back catalogue of programmes, revamp the old Thames continuity intro and during the week branded the channel "ITV1 - Thames" and at the weekend LWT.
2. Ditch ITV Play in favour of good original innovative homemade programming, the main production centres would be based in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Cardiff.
3. Takeover SMG and reinstate regional identities ( Scottish and Grampian )
4. Re-start Children's productions and the CITV service on ITV1.
5. More hard hitting current affairs programmes such as ' World in Action ' and ' First Tuesday ' , while ditching the lightweight ' Tonight with Trevor McDonald ' .
There would obviously be more to do, but this would be a good start, what ITV is lacking more than good quality programmes is ' Creditability ' , this would go a long way to restoting it's tarnished image. I really would love this to happen , like I would like to win the lottery, we can but dream !one thing I know for certain is that Sky's stake in ITV is bad news and they must be made to reliquish them !
How would you improve ITV1?
ITV was to return to the 1989 Generic system of doing things, ITV would still have a presence with the regional company's name taking priority. If I was Michael Grade this is what I would do:1.Restore all the ITV regional companies except Carlton, rename Granada as ' North West Television ' . Start negotiating with the RTL Group to acquire the rights to the Thames brand and back catalogue of programmes, revamp the old Thames continuity intro and during the week branded the channel "ITV1 - Thames" and at the weekend LWT.
2. Ditch ITV Play in favour of good original innovative homemade programming, the main production centres would be based in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Cardiff.
3. Takeover SMG and reinstate regional identities ( Scottish and Grampian )
4. Re-start Children's productions and the CITV service on ITV1.
5. More hard hitting current affairs programmes such as ' World in Action ' and ' First Tuesday ' , while ditching the lightweight ' Tonight with Trevor McDonald ' .
There would obviously be more to do, but this would be a good start, what ITV is lacking more than good quality programmes is ' Creditability ' , this would go a long way to restoting it's tarnished image. I really would love this to happen , like I would like to win the lottery, we can but dream !one thing I know for certain is that Sky's stake in ITV is bad news and they must be made to reliquish them !