Originally Posted by sn_22:
“Very interesting stuff indeed, and quite clearly explains the on-screen strategy we've seen from ITV for years now. If they wanted to make a better fist of the ratings rat race, they have hundreds of millions of pounds to do it with. They simply choose not to.
For all the talk of the BBC's market impact, that's (one of) the much bigger issues in the British TV industry. ITV's dominance of the commercial space is such that rather than feeling compelled to invest in programmes, they can just keep a lid on content spend and flesh out their profit margins. If only we had a bit of genuine, commercial mass-audience competition, we might see some of that money get invested. It's why I'd love to see a Viacom-owned C5 make a big content push, but alas it seems very unlikely.”
You need another big commercial mainstream channel to rival itv. I know you could say that it is BBC One who does challenge itv in terms of programmes, but of course it is a public funded organisation and although imo BBC One is in better shape as a channel it is going to face tough decisions with the likes of the Rt Hon John Whittingdale,OBE, Member of Parliament for Maldon and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on its case morning noon and night, he tends to lean more towards the commercial broadcaster.
I am surprised Murdoch has not got some sort of Consortium together to rival itv with a main entertainment channel. Perhaps if this happened some of the most popular BBC shows like Strictly, EastEnders, Doctor Who, Sherlock could be shown on this channel and target itv at every opportunity taking the broadcaster head on. This would hopefully then make itv up their game?
I am sure this would not happen as commercial broadcasters are a business and only interested in the balance sheet as is pretty obvious with itv.
