Will ITV have to keep moving Corrie then this year with other football commitments on Wednesdays? :o
Infrequently yes.
As regards news, the BBC move regional news for days on end when it suits them for various tennis games, F1 etc. Of course then it is a public service.
Will ITV have to keep moving Corrie then this year with other football commitments on Wednesdays? :o
Nah, not that often, football is mostly Tuesday nowadays:)
BTW could someone explain to me why certain posters are blaming Tuesday football as the reason for ITVs terrible Tuesdays. Didn't the decline start when the Champions Leugue was shown on Wednesday. Anyway, there are massive gaps in the football, one going on for about 2 months now, and obviously Summer is off, so if ITV wanted to launch a big show there, they easily could. Just seems unreasonable football-bashing to me.
Corrie will probably rate better when recordings are added in.
It was ludicrous scheduling for what was a pivotal episode in a storyline that has people hooked. Not as if it were a run of the mill episode that viewers could miss.
Anyone who did by simply not spotting this out of place episode is not going to be pleased with ITV. I see some flak in the press coming,
You do not need to be a professional scheduler to know that near on 3 hours of football leading into an awkward junction schedule of possibly the latest Corrie in years (?) is asking for any Corrie fans to go elsewhere for the night and catch up on this episode later. At least if they even knew it was located where no Corrie usually fears to tread.
It was simply a bonkers decision that got the ratings its disrespect of the regular audience deserved.
as sky ones audience is small in comparison to bbc1 and itv which sky one shows if they were launched on saturday night on main channel would be instant hits not just run of the mill averages etc, got to dance would b my pick
That circus reality show, provided they made celebs do lion taming and getting fired out of a canon into a bear pit. That could be fun, The Sky version was at least different from the usual singing and dancing stuff but was too tame (the high wire looked about 3 foot off the ground!) and did not have Ant and Dec presenting.
With those changes it would be a Saturday night hit IMO.
All your arguments have rather evaporated in the light of this morning's news about Being Human ending - which must have been known when the series was commissioned. Lots of bouquets passing between Touchpaper and the BBC - but no clear reason for ending the show: 'making the way for new talent' is hardly the same as 'we will be commissioning more drama for BBC Three now BH is ending'.
You could argue it either way. BBC Three might have told the creators that they would only get another series if the ratings were stunning - and then moved swiftly to wield the axe once (in part due to scheduling) the ratings fell for the show's return. We will see whether there is a "proper" conclusion to this season/series in a very few weeks.
In any event, it's not a bad or mad decision - creatively the show was IMO past its best.
Given that publicity for this series has been muted in comparison to previous ones, and I think I'm correct in saying that ratings for the last series were down anyway, the scenario you outline seems rather unlikely. All the quotes rather make it feel like this was a pre-planned announcement - a little like Danny Cohen's soundbites when it was revealed Merlin wasn't coming back (something that was no surprise to those working on the show).
The News at 10 is regularly being pushed later now. In the next two weeks it will start late on three occasions (two Europa League matches and the Brit Awards) Sure they might think it doesnt matter now with its rubbish ratings. But why are its ratings rubbish? Because its been moved all over the schedule.
NaT has rated badly ever since it returned. Back in 2008(?) it made sense to try and keep it consistent and avoid the whole "News at When" thing cropping up again. And they rarely moved it - even BGT and I'm A Celebrity were finishing a bit earlier (or clashing with Eastenders) so as NaT could keep its timeslot in the hope that the consistency would allow it to build and grow. But a few years down the line and it's clear that the ratings aren't going anywhere. If something more valuable could do better in that timeslot then I think it makes sense to move NaT.
Following last years farce of Itv cutting off Adeles winning speech midway through, Itv has extended the Brits to 10.15pm to avoid such an incident occuring again.
NaT has rated badly ever since it returned. Back in 2008(?) it made sense to try and keep it consistent and avoid the whole "News at When" thing cropping up again. And they rarely moved it - even BGT and I'm A Celebrity were finishing a bit earlier (or clashing with Eastenders) so as NaT could keep its timeslot in the hope that the consistency would allow it to build and grow. But a few years down the line and it's clear that the ratings aren't going anywhere. If something more valuable could do better in that timeslot then I think it makes sense to move NaT.
ITV News at Ten is a simple case of killing two birds with one stone. Showing it at 10.30pm/11pm just means they need to plug a gap- as seen with the initial return in 2008 when it used to air on a Friday at 11pm. It soon reverted to five days per week because they simply couldn't successfully fill the 10pm slot. They're already struggling filling 8-10pm on most days and its where their focus needs to be. The chances are anything they were to air in the 10pm slot would rate similarly to how News at Ten is doing anyway, and a later news bulletin would get even lower figures, perhaps similar to what the post 10.35pm programming gets now. That would then defeat the purpose.
It's just a slot and a programme ITV need to write off in the name of PSB obligations. There isn't really anything else that they can do. If I'm a Celebrity, football, BGT etc runs into it and pushes it back by 10 minutes or so, its hardly the end of the world. People will hardly say they're never watching ITV News ever again because it started a bit later.
Right so last year when ITV moved Corrie from Thursdays but then kept moving it back for various reasons, they were slated.
Now this year they have taken the decision that they shouldn't use Thursdays anymore as Corrie doesn't air on Thursdays, so when required they will push it early or late but stay on Wednesdays. Yet they are now being slated for that as well :rolleyes:
What do you expect them to do if they are showing a football match on a day/ time when soaps usually air? Decide to pass on showing the football?
In the first Wednesday of February Sweeps, ratings were down across the board. The available 18-49 audience was about 3% lower in primetime this week and coupled with far stiffer competition, ratings were squeezed.
American Idol fell 16% from last week and was down 23% from the equivalent night last year (despite last years show being just a one hour episode in the less watched 8pm hour). Modern Family, which didn't face Idol on this night last year, was 31% below 2012 and 10% off from its last original episode.
Elsewhere, Chicago Fire topped Nashville at 10pm but both shows were down. Nashville hit a series low too. However, Chicago Fire built on its SVU lead-in as the latter show continues to struggle despite a cameo from Mike Tyson.
It's worth pointing out that the only reason BBC1's prime time schedule isn't disrupted by sport, and the BBC News at 10 always starts at 10, is basically because BBC1 doesn't show any prime time sport, if they did then there would be the same disruption.
Ah the 9:40pm slot given to corrie harks back to the old days when it would be rescheduled to 9:45pm when the football was on Wednesdays. Surely it never used to do that bad in that slot 10-15 years ago?
It's worth pointing out that the only reason BBC1's prime time schedule isn't disrupted by sport, and the BBC News at 10 always starts at 10, is basically because BBC1 doesn't show any prime time sport, if they did then there would be the same disruption.
when they had sport the used to squeeze it into 8-10pm slots often with no pre or post match. The lack of the 3 wooden tops (Hansen, Lawrenson and Shearer) did their ratings and the viewers a favour on balance, but isnt an option for an advertising funded network where the ads must run pre and post match to pay for the coverage.
great rating for ITV there. Africa held up really well and deserved to because it was a great series. Really enjoyed it.
England Games to me don't have the atmosphere they did back in the BBC days. I suspect that's me being silly but they don't feel as big any more. That's why I thought it was good the BBC used to cover the FA stuff because they bring gravitas to an event even if they cover it in an unspectacular way.
Right so last year when ITV moved Corrie from Thursdays but then kept moving it back for various reasons, they were slated.
Now this year they have taken the decision that they shouldn't use Thursdays anymore as Corrie doesn't air on Thursdays, so when required they will push it early or late but stay on Wednesdays. Yet they are now being slated for that as well :rolleyes:
What do you expect them to do if they are showing a football match on a day/ time when soaps usually air? Decide to pass on showing the football?
Andy, your paranoia/making things up has come back strong.
How exactly is putting Corrie late on a Wednesday, getting under 6m, forcing them to rush through the end of the football and damage The News by pushing it later a better decision than putting on Thursday where it would probably have rated at least 2m higher, bumping the flop Nursing The Nation and providing a much better lead-in for the Martin Clunes doc?
England Games to me don't have the atmosphere they did back in the BBC days. I suspect that's me being silly but they don't feel as big any more. That's why I thought it was good the BBC used to cover the FA stuff because they bring gravitas to an event even if they cover it in an unspectacular way.
Ken
The BBC potency in promotion has something to do this, in my opinion. With the number of radio stations and a high class website pushing sporting programmes it becomes something of an event as it feels as though everyone is talking about it. For whatever reasons, commercial networks don't have the same influence across different types of media. I bet the Grand National won't have the same impact as previous years now it's left the BBC.
BBC1 would only do that for a major championships, never ever for a run of the mill Europa League match.
The News at 10 is regularly being pushed later now. In the next two weeks it will start late on three occasions (two Europa League matches and the Brit Awards) Sure they might think it doesnt matter now with its rubbish ratings. But why are its ratings rubbish? Because its been moved all over the schedule.
I think the BBC would do it for a run of the mill Europa League match, actually, back in the nineties when they showed Uefa Cup matches on Tuesday, if they were early kick-offs they would sometimes cut the regional news to fit it in. Until now though the BBC always had the advantage of BBC2 which everyone could get, unlike ITV4.
It doesn't bother me when News at Ten is moved back for live events and maybe even the Brit Awards would be acceptable. What I don't think is right is when they move it for Superstar or Popstar To Operastar or, as they did last November, a Royal Variety clip show. That's stuff they can show at any time. What it means is that there's no loyalty for ITV News and it only gets a big audience if the show before it gets a big audience, it doesn't do anything on its own. That's exactly the opposite of how it used to be when ITN were trusted and had their family of correspondents viewers knew and liked. Their Diana coverage illustrates that, when it beat the BBC.
that all stems from ITV's disastrous decisions to axe NAT back in late 90's under pressure from advertisers. They had about one month's worth of film programming that justified the later timeslot for the news, then the rest of the schedule ended up looking very anaemic.
Oh, I dunno, at the time ITV did have a real swagger about it and when they moved News at Ten I genuinely feared for BBC1 because they were at a low ebb and their schedules were a mess (I've said this before but on the first night of the 11pm news, when ITV were rolling out the hits, BBC1 at 9.30 had Animal Police, a grim docusoap about the RSPCA, which the following week had been demoted to a late night slot). And if they'd been able to find a few hit shows to put at 10pm, it might have worked. They just didn't invest enough.
The whole point of moving it was that too many people decided that And Finally on News at Ten was the cue to go to bed, but one reason for that was because the 10.30-10.40 bit of ITV was just such a mess, you had the weather, the regional news, the regional weather, some other stuff like the pollen count or the travel news (I remember Central had that), all with their own sponsorship bumpers, plus adverts and trailers, so there were about a million opportunities to switch off. They have mostly the same stuff at 10.30 now but it doesn't seem half as long because it flows much better.
The idea was also sound in that they wanted to attract younger viewers but couldn't really do that at 9pm and the post-10.30 slot didn't offer any inheritance, so it made sense that there would be an extra hour of primetime from 10-11pm where they could be a bit more adult and give new stuff a good lead-in. We weren't to know virtually nothing would catch on.
I really thought around the turn of the decade ITV was an excellent example of a commercial channel, it did popular mass-market stuff but also interesting things, they'd always been big on drama but the 9pm schedules were more varied under David Liddiment with popular factual and entertainment, and they were happy to innovate too with things like Baddiel and Skinner. There was a vim and a verve to it in those days.
It was ludicrous scheduling for what was a pivotal episode in a storyline that has people hooked. Not as if it were a run of the mill episode that viewers could miss.
Anyone who did by simply not spotting this out of place episode is not going to be pleased with ITV. I see some flak in the press coming.
Famously, though, in 1986 the famous episode where the Rovers went on fire ended up going out at 6.15 because of the World Cup, so they repeated it the following evening.
Now this year they have taken the decision that they shouldn't use Thursdays anymore as Corrie doesn't air on Thursdays, so when required they will push it early or late but stay on Wednesdays. Yet they are now being slated for that as well :rolleyes:
But they don't always keep it on the proper days, though, hence before Christmas when they moved it off MONDAY for the Royal Variety Performance, which could have been on any night of the week. It's not when they move it for events beyond their control, it's when they move it for no reason like they did then, or like before the NTAs when it was at seven even though the NTAs could happily start at eight and run past ten, as indeed the Brits are doing. It's so darn inconsistent.
Of course in the days when they used to have Corrie at 9.45 most Wednesdays because of the Champions League, they used to premiere it on ITV2 at 7.30. Presumably to do that now would cannibalise the ITV1 screening too much.
It's worth pointing out that the only reason BBC1's prime time schedule isn't disrupted by sport, and the BBC News at 10 always starts at 10, is basically because BBC1 doesn't show any prime time sport, if they did then there would be the same disruption.
Hmm, must have imagined the Olympics Games, then. And Royal Variety clip shows are not sport.
when they had sport the used to squeeze it into 8-10pm slots often with no pre or post match. The lack of the 3 wooden tops (Hansen, Lawrenson and Shearer) did their ratings and the viewers a favour on balance, but isnt an option for an advertising funded network where the ads must run pre and post match to pay for the coverage.
Except of course last month the ITV coverage of Man U vs West Ham in the FA Cup started at 8pm for an 8.05 kick-off, and finished just after ten.
Oh, I dunno, at the time ITV did have a real swagger about it and when they moved News at Ten I genuinely feared for BBC1 because they were at a low ebb and their schedules were a mess (I've said this before but on the first night of the 11pm news, when ITV were rolling out the hits, BBC1 at 9.30 had Animal Police, a grim docusoap about the RSPCA, which the following week had been demoted to a late night slot). And if they'd been able to find a few hit shows to put at 10pm, it might have worked. They just didn't invest enough.
The whole point of moving it was that too many people decided that And Finally on News at Ten was the cue to go to bed, but one reason for that was because the 10.30-10.40 bit of ITV was just such a mess, you had the weather, the regional news, the regional weather, some other stuff like the pollen count or the travel news (I remember Central had that), all with their own sponsorship bumpers, plus adverts and trailers, so there were about a million opportunities to switch off. They have mostly the same stuff at 10.30 now but it doesn't seem half as long because it flows much better.
The idea was also sound in that they wanted to attract younger viewers but couldn't really do that at 9pm and the post-10.30 slot didn't offer any inheritance, so it made sense that there would be an extra hour of primetime from 10-11pm where they could be a bit more adult and give new stuff a good lead-in. We weren't to know virtually nothing would catch on.
'We'? Were you partly behind the move, Steve? :D:D
In all seriousness, the issue ITV had with moving News at Ten is that it opened up the slot for BBC One to move the Nine o'clock News back an hour, which meant it could start it's post-watershed programming in line with ITV's offerings, rather than 9.25pm. This knocked ITV's figures which meant the 10pm shows weren't getting the kind of lead in they would have done had the Nine o'clock news stayed where it was.
To be honest, I'm surprised OFCOM haven't tried to force either the BBC or ITV to move the late night news so they didn't clash; it seems ridiculous and unnecessary to have the two biggest channels airing the same thing at the same time (the evening news isn't so bad because the regional news tends to clash with the national news and vice versa).
what you've said is correct though, I don't understand why the kick off was 7.30pm. I could understand if the match was being played overseas and that was forced upon ITV.
Seeing as it was at Wembley and on a normal Wednesday night, there's no decent reason for the match not kicking off at either 7.45pm or 8pm
Corrie fans suffer in the process, not that it bothers me
maybe itv shouldnt have had the episode on at all and shown weds episode on fri at 7.30 and followed it by a single new friday episode at 8.30 then next wednesday have an hour long episode so it all gets back on track.
confusing myself lol but would avoid low ratings if if itv couldnt screen footy at 7.30 because of issues etc
It's worth pointing out that the only reason BBC1's prime time schedule isn't disrupted by sport, and the BBC News at 10 always starts at 10, is basically because BBC1 doesn't show any prime time sport, if they did then there would be the same disruption.
By sport we shall assume you meant domestic football and not F1, Six Nations Rugby, Tennis, Olympics/Commonwealth Games, Football World Cup/ Euro Championship etc...:D
By sport we shall assume you meant football and not F1, Six Nations Rugby, Tennis, Olympics/Commonwealth Games etc...:D
Not good examples, most of that either airs at weekends or does cause massive disruption to the usual schedules so BBC1 are in the same boat as ITV there.
'We'? Were you partly behind the move, Steve? :D:D
In all seriousness, the issue ITV had with moving News at Ten is that it opened up the slot for BBC One to move the Nine o'clock News back an hour, which meant it could start it's post-watershed programming in line with ITV's offerings, rather than 9.25pm. This knocked ITV's figures which meant the 10pm shows weren't getting the kind of lead in they would have done had the Nine o'clock news stayed where it was.
To be honest, I'm surprised OFCOM haven't tried to force either the BBC or ITV to move the late night news so they didn't clash; it seems ridiculous and unnecessary to have the two biggest channels airing the same thing at the same time (the evening news isn't so bad because the regional news tends to clash with the national news and vice versa).
bbc ones shows never made a 9.25pm start after news at nine it was always late starts at 9.35, 9.40,
ofcom are the ones who moan about itv not bbc much as they wanted higher ratings for news for itv as part of its licence so doubt itv's will go.
still one of the biggest mistakes for itv to ever axe news at ten as it allowed bbc1 to become stronger and that situation never seemed to change since. do think itv improving tho and has done over past few years and glad shows like love island and footballers wives gone.
Comments
Infrequently yes.
As regards news, the BBC move regional news for days on end when it suits them for various tennis games, F1 etc. Of course then it is a public service.
Every channel moves things for events.
Nah, not that often, football is mostly Tuesday nowadays:)
BTW could someone explain to me why certain posters are blaming Tuesday football as the reason for ITVs terrible Tuesdays. Didn't the decline start when the Champions Leugue was shown on Wednesday. Anyway, there are massive gaps in the football, one going on for about 2 months now, and obviously Summer is off, so if ITV wanted to launch a big show there, they easily could. Just seems unreasonable football-bashing to me.
It was ludicrous scheduling for what was a pivotal episode in a storyline that has people hooked. Not as if it were a run of the mill episode that viewers could miss.
Anyone who did by simply not spotting this out of place episode is not going to be pleased with ITV. I see some flak in the press coming,
You do not need to be a professional scheduler to know that near on 3 hours of football leading into an awkward junction schedule of possibly the latest Corrie in years (?) is asking for any Corrie fans to go elsewhere for the night and catch up on this episode later. At least if they even knew it was located where no Corrie usually fears to tread.
It was simply a bonkers decision that got the ratings its disrespect of the regular audience deserved.
That circus reality show, provided they made celebs do lion taming and getting fired out of a canon into a bear pit. That could be fun, The Sky version was at least different from the usual singing and dancing stuff but was too tame (the high wire looked about 3 foot off the ground!) and did not have Ant and Dec presenting.
With those changes it would be a Saturday night hit IMO.
Given that publicity for this series has been muted in comparison to previous ones, and I think I'm correct in saying that ratings for the last series were down anyway, the scenario you outline seems rather unlikely. All the quotes rather make it feel like this was a pre-planned announcement - a little like Danny Cohen's soundbites when it was revealed Merlin wasn't coming back (something that was no surprise to those working on the show).
NaT has rated badly ever since it returned. Back in 2008(?) it made sense to try and keep it consistent and avoid the whole "News at When" thing cropping up again. And they rarely moved it - even BGT and I'm A Celebrity were finishing a bit earlier (or clashing with Eastenders) so as NaT could keep its timeslot in the hope that the consistency would allow it to build and grow. But a few years down the line and it's clear that the ratings aren't going anywhere. If something more valuable could do better in that timeslot then I think it makes sense to move NaT.
ITV News at Ten is a simple case of killing two birds with one stone. Showing it at 10.30pm/11pm just means they need to plug a gap- as seen with the initial return in 2008 when it used to air on a Friday at 11pm. It soon reverted to five days per week because they simply couldn't successfully fill the 10pm slot. They're already struggling filling 8-10pm on most days and its where their focus needs to be. The chances are anything they were to air in the 10pm slot would rate similarly to how News at Ten is doing anyway, and a later news bulletin would get even lower figures, perhaps similar to what the post 10.35pm programming gets now. That would then defeat the purpose.
It's just a slot and a programme ITV need to write off in the name of PSB obligations. There isn't really anything else that they can do. If I'm a Celebrity, football, BGT etc runs into it and pushes it back by 10 minutes or so, its hardly the end of the world. People will hardly say they're never watching ITV News ever again because it started a bit later.
Now this year they have taken the decision that they shouldn't use Thursdays anymore as Corrie doesn't air on Thursdays, so when required they will push it early or late but stay on Wednesdays. Yet they are now being slated for that as well :rolleyes:
What do you expect them to do if they are showing a football match on a day/ time when soaps usually air? Decide to pass on showing the football?
8pm - The Middle - 8.41m (2.3)
8.30pm - The Neighbors - 6.33m (1.8)
9pm - Modern Family - 10.14m (3.8)
9.30pm - Suburgatory - 5.88m (2.1)
10pm - Nashville - 5.25m (1.7)
CBS:
8pm - Person of Interest (R) - 7.26m (1.2)
9pm - Criminal Minds - 11.83m (2.7)
10pm - CSI - 10.93m (2.4)
FOX:
8pm - American Idol - 14.18m (4.6)
NBC:
8pm - Whitney - 3.53m (1.2)
8.30pm - Guys With Kids - 3.19m (1.2)
9pm - Law & Order: SVU - 5.19m (1.5)
10pm - Chicago Fire - 6.52m (1.8)
CW:
8pm - Arrow - 2.95m (1.0)
9pm - Supernatural - 2.22m (1.0)
Tvbythenumbers
In the first Wednesday of February Sweeps, ratings were down across the board. The available 18-49 audience was about 3% lower in primetime this week and coupled with far stiffer competition, ratings were squeezed.
American Idol fell 16% from last week and was down 23% from the equivalent night last year (despite last years show being just a one hour episode in the less watched 8pm hour). Modern Family, which didn't face Idol on this night last year, was 31% below 2012 and 10% off from its last original episode.
Elsewhere, Chicago Fire topped Nashville at 10pm but both shows were down. Nashville hit a series low too. However, Chicago Fire built on its SVU lead-in as the latter show continues to struggle despite a cameo from Mike Tyson.
when they had sport the used to squeeze it into 8-10pm slots often with no pre or post match. The lack of the 3 wooden tops (Hansen, Lawrenson and Shearer) did their ratings and the viewers a favour on balance, but isnt an option for an advertising funded network where the ads must run pre and post match to pay for the coverage.
England Games to me don't have the atmosphere they did back in the BBC days. I suspect that's me being silly but they don't feel as big any more. That's why I thought it was good the BBC used to cover the FA stuff because they bring gravitas to an event even if they cover it in an unspectacular way.
Ken
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2013/bbc-three-new-programming.html
A few ratings stats at the bottom of the article, too.
How exactly is putting Corrie late on a Wednesday, getting under 6m, forcing them to rush through the end of the football and damage The News by pushing it later a better decision than putting on Thursday where it would probably have rated at least 2m higher, bumping the flop Nursing The Nation and providing a much better lead-in for the Martin Clunes doc?
The BBC potency in promotion has something to do this, in my opinion. With the number of radio stations and a high class website pushing sporting programmes it becomes something of an event as it feels as though everyone is talking about it. For whatever reasons, commercial networks don't have the same influence across different types of media. I bet the Grand National won't have the same impact as previous years now it's left the BBC.
Fair enough - I withdraw that remark.
I think the BBC would do it for a run of the mill Europa League match, actually, back in the nineties when they showed Uefa Cup matches on Tuesday, if they were early kick-offs they would sometimes cut the regional news to fit it in. Until now though the BBC always had the advantage of BBC2 which everyone could get, unlike ITV4.
It doesn't bother me when News at Ten is moved back for live events and maybe even the Brit Awards would be acceptable. What I don't think is right is when they move it for Superstar or Popstar To Operastar or, as they did last November, a Royal Variety clip show. That's stuff they can show at any time. What it means is that there's no loyalty for ITV News and it only gets a big audience if the show before it gets a big audience, it doesn't do anything on its own. That's exactly the opposite of how it used to be when ITN were trusted and had their family of correspondents viewers knew and liked. Their Diana coverage illustrates that, when it beat the BBC.
Oh, I dunno, at the time ITV did have a real swagger about it and when they moved News at Ten I genuinely feared for BBC1 because they were at a low ebb and their schedules were a mess (I've said this before but on the first night of the 11pm news, when ITV were rolling out the hits, BBC1 at 9.30 had Animal Police, a grim docusoap about the RSPCA, which the following week had been demoted to a late night slot). And if they'd been able to find a few hit shows to put at 10pm, it might have worked. They just didn't invest enough.
The whole point of moving it was that too many people decided that And Finally on News at Ten was the cue to go to bed, but one reason for that was because the 10.30-10.40 bit of ITV was just such a mess, you had the weather, the regional news, the regional weather, some other stuff like the pollen count or the travel news (I remember Central had that), all with their own sponsorship bumpers, plus adverts and trailers, so there were about a million opportunities to switch off. They have mostly the same stuff at 10.30 now but it doesn't seem half as long because it flows much better.
The idea was also sound in that they wanted to attract younger viewers but couldn't really do that at 9pm and the post-10.30 slot didn't offer any inheritance, so it made sense that there would be an extra hour of primetime from 10-11pm where they could be a bit more adult and give new stuff a good lead-in. We weren't to know virtually nothing would catch on.
I really thought around the turn of the decade ITV was an excellent example of a commercial channel, it did popular mass-market stuff but also interesting things, they'd always been big on drama but the 9pm schedules were more varied under David Liddiment with popular factual and entertainment, and they were happy to innovate too with things like Baddiel and Skinner. There was a vim and a verve to it in those days.
Famously, though, in 1986 the famous episode where the Rovers went on fire ended up going out at 6.15 because of the World Cup, so they repeated it the following evening.
But they don't always keep it on the proper days, though, hence before Christmas when they moved it off MONDAY for the Royal Variety Performance, which could have been on any night of the week. It's not when they move it for events beyond their control, it's when they move it for no reason like they did then, or like before the NTAs when it was at seven even though the NTAs could happily start at eight and run past ten, as indeed the Brits are doing. It's so darn inconsistent.
Of course in the days when they used to have Corrie at 9.45 most Wednesdays because of the Champions League, they used to premiere it on ITV2 at 7.30. Presumably to do that now would cannibalise the ITV1 screening too much.
Hmm, must have imagined the Olympics Games, then. And Royal Variety clip shows are not sport.
Except of course last month the ITV coverage of Man U vs West Ham in the FA Cup started at 8pm for an 8.05 kick-off, and finished just after ten.
For the record how did EE get dragged down by Emmerdale? (I believe they went head-to-head).
'We'? Were you partly behind the move, Steve?
In all seriousness, the issue ITV had with moving News at Ten is that it opened up the slot for BBC One to move the Nine o'clock News back an hour, which meant it could start it's post-watershed programming in line with ITV's offerings, rather than 9.25pm. This knocked ITV's figures which meant the 10pm shows weren't getting the kind of lead in they would have done had the Nine o'clock news stayed where it was.
To be honest, I'm surprised OFCOM haven't tried to force either the BBC or ITV to move the late night news so they didn't clash; it seems ridiculous and unnecessary to have the two biggest channels airing the same thing at the same time (the evening news isn't so bad because the regional news tends to clash with the national news and vice versa).
maybe itv shouldnt have had the episode on at all and shown weds episode on fri at 7.30 and followed it by a single new friday episode at 8.30 then next wednesday have an hour long episode so it all gets back on track.
confusing myself lol but would avoid low ratings if if itv couldnt screen footy at 7.30 because of issues etc
By sport we shall assume you meant domestic football and not F1, Six Nations Rugby, Tennis, Olympics/Commonwealth Games, Football World Cup/ Euro Championship etc...:D
Not good examples, most of that either airs at weekends or does cause massive disruption to the usual schedules so BBC1 are in the same boat as ITV there.
bbc ones shows never made a 9.25pm start after news at nine it was always late starts at 9.35, 9.40,
ofcom are the ones who moan about itv not bbc much as they wanted higher ratings for news for itv as part of its licence so doubt itv's will go.
still one of the biggest mistakes for itv to ever axe news at ten as it allowed bbc1 to become stronger and that situation never seemed to change since. do think itv improving tho and has done over past few years and glad shows like love island and footballers wives gone.