Saturday was best night on ITV1 in 2 Years

Actually, Kat, the first US Grand Prix was shown live on ITV2.

Yes, but not EVERYONE was able to see it. Only those with satellite. ITV promised they'd show all races live to everyone in their original contract, something which has gone by the board.

Quotes from Kat's post:

Might I hasten to add that a drop in ratings for one single night hardly constitutes people leaving the BBC in droves, and a more global outlook is required.

I was using a similar tactic to the BBC loving Brigade on this forum.  As soon as ITV has one bad night for ratings, they jump on the bandwagon, making sweeping statements about ITV's output.  Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black perhaps?

When ratings start to fall, they hark back to the good old days to try and get viewers back i.e. Bet Gilroy on Corrie, when Eastenders started to get more viewers and awards at various ceremonies, when they should be looking to fresh ideas.

Ok, Kat, well then let's look at Eastenders, we've had Sharon come back, Dot come back and Frank when times have become hard.  That's soaps for you, characters leave with the promise of something better, fail, then come back to where they found their popularity.

Would Shafted ever have been shown if The Weakest Link had not been created before it?

I think the question here is would The Weakest Link be around had Who Wants to be a Millionaire not been created before it.  ITV reinvented the quiz show.

The fact of the matter is, is that the BBC is by far the more recognised one abroad. the World service is there for nearly everywhere on the globe, plus the better exports of programmes have been a product of the BBC. Monty Python's Flying Circus was a BBC production, as was Fawlty Towers and Are You Being Served.

I don't doubt that. Agreed.

Even when ITV try to outdo the BBC by being innovative, they slip up. The Premiership and Survivor are outstanding examples. They blew a big fanfare for themselves when they got Formula One, but slipped up big style when they couldn't be bothered to do the first, and historic US Grand Prix from no place other than Indianapolis, properly, failing to broadcast a single minute of this landmark event live for all viewers, tape-delaying it to a time when most, particularly young fans would have been able to see it. Thank God Bernie Ecclestone is producing a vastly better interactive pay-per-view service I will willingly and unhesitatingly subscribe to!

Actually by-rights Survivor ought to have been very popular on this forum.  It was an ITV programme that wasn't very popular.  That's what you all hate about ITV isn't it ?? The fact it makes popular entertainment for the majority.  Yes, you should have loved Survivor.

Formula One has finally got the terrestrial coverage it deserved when ITV took over.  Much more coverage and airtime rather than a quick slot in Grandstand.  The BBC did not show live qualifying, the BBC did not have pit lane interviews, no presenter at the circuit, no driver interviews & features.  ITV were very innovative with their F1 coverage and this has been recognised by the industry.  As far as the Premiership goes, that was ITV being innovative by moving it to 7pm.  It was an experiment that didn't pay off, in an environment were TV football highlights are struggling.  The actual programme itself again has been highly regarded by the industry, and it's getting it's best ever viewing figures at the right time for football highlights.

Sometimes, I wish people would be charitable enough to give the BBC the credit it rightly deserves.

Sorry, I can't take that comment seriously Kat.  Do you not read the majority of posts from the BBC loving brigade on this forum ? ?  If any broadcaster is done an injustice on this forum it's ITV, thank god I'm around to redress that balance.  I just wish people would extend the same charity to ITV that I do to the BBC rather than dismissing all the output and making sweeping generalisations about the type of viewers.





(Edited by square eyes at 10:20 pm on Feb. 13, 2002)

Katherine,

Being biased (as you appear to be) against ITV is one thing, but using erroneous examples to support this bias dismantles your argument.

The BBC is certainly the biggest brand in the broadcasting world, and beyond, so we can be thankful that the tax we pay for it has some benefits. But ITV is also widesly recognised and respected the world over.

Down the years, a succession of programmes, mostly comedy and drama, from the ITV stable have been sold the world over: Morse, Frost, Cracker, Prime Suspect being the best examples, but there are many more.

I, too, find a lot of these people type shows, including Pop Idol, tacky and repetitive, but ITV has sold the formats of a whole plethora of original ideas overseas, including Pop Idol, Popstars, Stars in their Eyes, the 'An Audience with ....' series, and Millionaire.

The Premiership did not work at 7.00 - but it was a brave move. Undermined by teethig problems, and panned by the papers - to fill space -maybe it should have been given beyond when the clocks went back. Now, in the old Match of the Day slot, it is about one million up on Match of the Day's ratings a year ago.

Look at the Radio Times or any listings magazine, if you didn't already know what was the BBC One schedule and what was the ITV run-down, it would often be quite difficult to tell them apart.

Don't even start me on the 'makeover' programmes and their off-spring. Daytime only, these were bearable as they were laregly out of sight, out of mind to me. Now they are everywhere - and there are more of them on the BBC, especially One, than anywhere else.

Is our BBC tax really being spent wisely on programmes that either ape ITVs, or worse, or are aggressively populist and only serve to put further pressure on ITV to go for the LCD, and a downward spiral.

I do not want the BBC to be like ITV without ads. I want it to innovate, inform, educate AND entertain, not just attempt to entertain.

I am glad ITV is giving the BBC a bloody nose so far this year. It is deserved, not because ITV is any great shakes, but because the BBC's pride at the end of 2001 was bound to end in a fall. I trust they will learn from it.

What do all these do then?

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. Who, Blue Peter (have helped millions of people through the years with their appeals), Not the Nine O'Clock News, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Young Ones, Have I Got News For You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, French and Saunders, Absolutely Fabulous, Alas Smith and Jones, Goodness Gracious Me, The Royle Family, the Good Life, Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game, Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em, Only Fools and Horses, Teletubbies, The Tweenies, Birds of a Feather, Call my Bluff, Eastenders, Grange Hill, Byker Grove (launched Ant and Dec, ITV should be thankful!) Pride and Prejudice, To the Manor Born, Lovejoy, Bargain Hunt, Butterflies, Bread, Carrott Confidential, Canned Carrott, Blackadder, Last of the Summer Wine, Casualty, Hancock's Half Hour, Steptoe and Son, The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, The Private Life of Plants, Life on Earth, the Living Planet, The Human Body, Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts, The Open University (now the Learning zone), Horizon, University Challenge, Mastermind, Gardeners World, Food and Drink, Record Breakers, Newsnight, Panorama, BBC News 24, On the Record, BBC Parliament, Watchdog, Comic Relief, Children in Need, Last Night of the Proms, See Hear, From the Edge, Delia Smith, the Really Wild Show, Antiques Roadshow, Songs of Praise, Newsround, The Day Today, the Sky At Night, Going Live, Swap Shop, Bottom, Breakfast with Frost, Dad's Army, Children's Hospital, Red Dwarf, Robot Wars, One Foot in the Grave, Top Gear, Watch with Mother and so on and so on.

I haven't even started on BBC Radio yet, and that's been instrumental in fostering and nurturing a plethora of new talent (the Goons, Dead Ringers, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Just a Minute, Desert Island Discs....). There's the BBC Music Live festivals, the BBC Home Health and Leisure Fairs, the Radio 1 Roadshow, BBC Gardeners World Live at the Birmingham NEC, the CBBC Big Bash etc. The BBC also has a far stronger identity at national and regional levels. The BBC is the broadcaster that actually made an effort to produce quality live coverage of the total solar eclipse of August 11th 1999, and its coverage of the worldwide celebrations of the new millennium was fantastic viewing. Come the time of general elections, it's the BBC coverage that attracts more viewers.

With such a stunning track record as this, I have absolutely no need for ITV at all! I am a person that's immensely proud to say that she was born a child of the BBC, thanks primarily to her parents' viewing choices, raised on BBC programming and will continue to be loyal to the BBC.

Square Eyes, he has a point....

Pop Idol - Such a cheap and tacky conseption of a programme
You've Been Framed - It was good with Beadle, but not now
Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Squeezed dry and is now boring

ITV have been and always be northern trash, the only things that they do which is done well by ITV, BBC, and Channel 4 are the Dramas.

i am afraid that it has come to a point where those who like these trashy shows are becoming a majority of the viewing public, and that is something we cannot blaim on c@t no matter how much we would like too

I'll Amen that sentiment.......

> ITV have been and always be northern trash

<splutter> excuse me? Apart from the obvious prejudiced undertones, 2 of the 3 programmes you mentioned hail from the south anyway!!

And your argument was going so well up to that point...

Abd cable and DTT!

Katherine,

If that 'spontaneous' list of yours was off the top of your head, I'm Alastair Campbell.

I'm surprised you didn't 'throw-in' Quatermass, Andy Pandy and Dixon of Dock Green just to complete what was really a set-piece history lesson in the form of a diatribe from you. What proportion of the stuff you mentioned in your above press-release was contemporary?

The point is: you can turn-off ITV and you're no worse off (financially); if I turn off the BBC (which I don't want to do - I want it to get better and stop throwing money at populist pap), I get nothing back for the tax that I pay for it.

Less of the spin, please, eh?

I'm just glad I don't stay in on Friday & Saturday nites, obviously when I was younger I would have been in. A lot of people I know watched Pop Idol, I just didn't bcos I was never into see it and couldn't be assed to get into it. It is also very rare I record anythink when I'm out. The last thing I did record on a Saturday nite was Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids Shows. Neither network is perfect, however only recently I have favoured the BBC over ITV. When I was younger I watched more ITV, one main thing irritating about ITV these days is the amount of advert breaks, they were the only broadcaster to increse them. This is irritating in programmes like The Premiership bcos you see less of the matches and the whole thing seems rushed. And I stopped watching WWTBAM about 2 years ago, it was great at first but it is so stale now.

I can't really be bothered to wade into this arguement, but you are worse off because you pay for ITV through increased prices in products! The ammount you actually pay for ITV is very high, its just extra pennis on prices!