Originally Posted by rzt:
“With the way in which hardly anyone is sampling any of ITV's new shows at the moment, what's the betting that Jekyll & Hyde disappoints too? Especially if it airs against Strictly Come Dancing, that's automatically a c1m deficit of what it would normally get anyway due to the sheer strength of the oppsotition. The Forgotten, if it airs this Autumn, will probably air on a day which isn't Sunday or Monday as both those days will be most likely blocked up by Downton Abbey and Doc Martin. So again, with the track-record ITV has with new dramas on Wednesday-Fridays, I wouldn't expect that to rate particularly well either. Grantchester was averaging about 4.6m in the overnights last Autumn in the Monday 9pm slot when not facing New Tricks, which is pretty underwhelming for a drama in that slot. So with it perhaps moving to another night plus a natural second series decline, take off about 20+% from its figures, and it may even be below 4m. Overall, it's looking like a weak year once again to me, with not many new ambitious sounding projects in the works.
I agree with others that ITV aren't investing enough money into their schedules. The annual programming budget for ITV1 is £800m compared to £1.02m BBC One has (BBC1's budget will get a £30m drama boost too once BBC3 gets the axe). The difference is way too much and it's really clear to see in the schedules when you look at them. The annual profits ITV makes are excellent - over £400m pre-tax profit for 2013. But they have to get the balance right between profits and the quality of their schedules, otherwise in the long-term their profits will start taking a hit once the few hit shows they have start declining.
I don't see why they couldn't increase the programming budget by say £100m. Yes it would probably decrease profits by about £50m or so (and yet they'd still make a healthy profit of £300m+ for the shareholders). That kind of extra investment really would help give them the ability to compete more and would be the equivalent of an extra 140 hours of drama or many hours of sport or high quality entertainment, the kind of programming which tend to generate higher ratings than cheaper filler and factual. ITV are coming towards the end of their '5 Year Transformation Plan', the aim of which was to increase profits and increase number of shows sold abroad which they own the rights to (which they kind of have achieved on both counts). But it's coming to the stage now where they need to shift strategy and reinvest into the schedules once again by increasing the budgets, otherwise it really will be too little too late if they leave things as they are and let things slide for another 2-3 years.”
There's obviously a decent chance Jekyll & Hyde will disappoint as there is with all new shows, especially in the current situation ITV are in. But I think if a show grabs people's attention then they'll sample it and that's what they need to do. Stuff like Get Your Act Together, The Wonder of Britain, Stars in Their Eyes (against The Voice at least) and Bring Back Borstal was never going to do that. But for instance, last Summer ITV were in a pretty terrible shape and everything for the Autumn was being written off and then Cilla came in with a stonking rating and demolished New Tricks. All it takes is for something to grab people's attention and they'll tune in. In Autumn 2012 ITV aired a load of new dramas and none really worked out. They were followed by the worst Christmas ever for them (worse than the one just gone) but then in early 2013 they launched Mr Selfridge and Broadchurch to huge numbers (Mr S has come off those since but it got sampled nonetheless). Of course J&H could flop, but if it does it'll be based on the show itself not grabbing people's attention (and possibly scheduling if it does air against Strictly) rather than the show itself. Not that I think they should necessarily avoid Strictly if they think it's strong and different enough to grab an audience. They can't avoid Strictly forever.
Personally I think The Forgotten should air on Mondays. Doc Mrtin took a dip last series and is probably on the way out. I'd probably put DM in the tricky Wednesday slot. It'd probably dip to 5-6m but even that would still be strong for that slot. Then The Forgotten gets a shot on Mondays. If possible I'd try and squeeze Grantchester onto Mondays too (even if it means starting one of The Forgotten or Grantchester in late August or doing a Sunday episode of one of them to get them wrapped up in time for IAC). The 3 eps that aired once New Tricks was done got 4.9m, 5.1m and 4.9m in the overnights and all consolidated above 6m. With another strong promotional campaign they could hold or improve those numbers (like Vera has done since its first series). I think it didn't pick up that much after NT ended as it was halfway through the series which might have put some viewers off. The start of a new series is a more natural point to start watching. I'd be tempted to repeat series 1 over the Summer too. Even if it only got 1.5m on Tuesdays they'd probably do no better itv some rubbish documentaries anyway (although I'd put it on Fridays personally).
I agree about the budget. They could really do with investing more into the programme budget and I hope it is considered soon. Adam Crozier acknowledged that audience share for 2014 was disappointing in his statement so he's conscious of the situation and this start to 2015 will have only increased that. I do hope they nicest a bit more as the schedule could really do with it. The gap between it and BBC1 is really noticeable in certain areas of the schedule (weekend daytime, Summer primetime, late night etc). ITV have clearly made a decision to focus on certain areas of the schedule (Autumn was pretty jam packed, in October they were running drama at 9pm 5 nights of the week, with X Factor and Champions League on the other 2 nights) which is all well and good but it means other areas seriously lag behind. I don't think this is some kind of desperate situation as these things often work cyclically (look at 2013 after 2012) but they could certainly do with more investment and improvement to help them compete better with BBC1 going forwards.
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