Itv could have a bad time at the start of the year if Beowolf isnt a success as they have the final series of Mr Selfridge as well. Which even though it is a fantastic series (imo) it doesnt pull in big ratings, but I suppose it will depend what the bbc put against it. Last year Mr S was against Last Tango in Halifax which produces good ratings but if the bbc's choice is weaker than last Tango then Mr Selfridge might pull in 4m something rather than the 3m ish which it got last year

I do agree, I think ITV have boxed themselves into a corner by appearing disinterested in so many slots throughout the year. Arguably good programmes should produce good audiences, but reputation does as well and I don't think ITV have anywhere as good a reputation in the country as they once did.

ITV have lost viewers because they have either given up on large swathes of the schedule or, where they do make an effort, seem to rely upon a narrow range of programming (see 11 episodes of soap per week as being a prime example of this) thus further alienating and losing viewers.

To rebuild share the answer is to surely invest in distinctive and ambitious prime-time content, coupled with (any) investment in off-peak programming. Tear-up the weeknight pre-watershed schedule and deliver a more varied line up of comedy, game shows, quizzes, lifestyle shows and current affairs; bring the amount of 9pm drama back up to near 1990s levels; invest in better / new content for post News @ Ten slots; make more of an effort on weekend daytimes - particularly in the slots directly leading into Saturday and Sunday prime time.

Of course, to do the above would require huge investment and ITV is a broadcaster second and a business first. It shouldn't be forgotten that the channel remains highly profitable, is still far bigger than their nearest commercial rivals in terms of market share, and the big hitters (whilst down) still deliver far bigger audiences than any commercial show on any other channel, so there seems to be little incentive to go down this route.

Though I imagine you are right in that the very low numbers suggest J&H wouldn't have been a hit anywhere, I do think the whole experience has shown the problems ITV has with scheduling rigidity. Pre-watershed during the week is essentially wiped out by the soap tangle, and XF dominates Q4 weekends to such a degree there just doesn't seem space for much else. I hope they stick with J&H and see how the 7pm slot pans out over time, but it feels incongruous there and the chance of finding an audience is slim.

As for Beowolf, I really think ITV ought to consider holding it back and pairing it up with Takeaway from the end of February - probably the best chance they have, in my book. It'd be a crying shame to see two big swings at high-volume, returnable drama fall by the wayside.

Amazing that those three shows even get up to 1.5m on a Saturday and Sunday. No wonder BBC1 show them 7 days a week now. The viewers can't get enough of them.

There audience skew is old, and they are the viewrs who watch TV the most and BBC1 the most.

Incidentally I notice ITV are still promoting Pick Me. Another poor commission of 25 episodes cloggs up the schedule. It must be doing very poorly (shares below 10%) for them to still be promoting it.

Or Ant n Dec's Guy Fawkes/Halloween/Xmas/NY etc Special

It's going to take ITV years to turn the main channel around, if they even wanted to (they seem quite content the way things are and just maximising profits). BBC One's schedule these days is strong overall partly because for the last 15 years, they've probably found two or three solid hits each year, brought them back the following year, found another 2-3 hits that year, brought them back (as well as the ones the year before) and so on and so forth, and got to the stage where they're at right now with a solid schedule full of returning shows complemented by new shows launching. It of course helps BBC One that they can effectively bring over the top rating shows from BBC Two (besides Top Gear which is the exception to the general rule) to bolster their schedules (key BBC1 shows to have started on BBC2 include Apprentice, GBBO, MasterChef, WDYTYA, Pointless, HIGNFY, Miranda), an opportunity that none of other the terrestrials have (the move between BBC2 to BBC1 is far more natural than ITV2 to ITV1 etc). ITV don't have that possibility in their bad so it is a little bit tougher for them but they should be doing better.

If you look at ITV the last five years, here's the significant returning hits (which air for at least 8 episodes a year) they've found each year still around now and significant shows they've cancelled each year:

2010- Downton Abbey... cancelled: Heartbeat
2011- Long Lost Family, Vera... cancelled: n/a
2012- For The Love of Dogs... cancelled: Wild at Heart, TV Burp
2013- Broadchurch... cancelled: n/a
2014- n/a... cancelled: Dancing on Ice
2015- n/a... cancelled: Downton Abbey

I know the above is very simplified and I may be forgetting one or two shows, but basically that's a net increase of 0. Right now they have no more significant hit shows than in 2010. In fact they're in a worse position because the returning hit shows they still have now which they had in 2010 are all rating quite a bit lower now (TXF, BGT, Doc Martin, Lewis etc).

For ITV1's ratings to have any hope of improving, there needs to be a net increase of hits per year of 2 or more. The problem is they're cancelling shows like Heartbeat, Wild at Heart, Dancing on Ice (which still rated pretty well, albeit lower than their peaks) even though they don't have potential hit replacements already waiting in the wings to take over. They really shouldn't be doing that because it means they're relying so much on the replacements the following year which are completely brand new and untested, 90% of the time it doesn't work out (i.e. Selfridge rated lower than the final series of Wild at Heart, Stars In Their Eyes/Get Your Act Together rated 3m lower than the final series of DOI etc). By all means shows like DOI shouldn't have such prominent slots once its ratings fell and hours for a future series should've been reduced from 25 (to make room for other shows) but it shouldn't have been axed altogether because they simply didn't have the shows waiting in the wings to replace 25 hours of c5m ratings.

I know there's often talk of where the soaps should be scheduled, some people want them to return on Sundays, and there's calls for them to be reduced etc. For me, I don't really think it matters where they're scheduled and I'd just keep them in the same slots as they are already in and not mess around with them anymore as it could potentially cause them to lose more viewers than they are. For instance if the Friday 8.30pm Corrie gets moved to Sunday 7.30pm, sure the Sunday 8pm show would get boosted a little but Friday 8pm onwards would have big problems etc. I don't think in the grand scheme of things changing the soap schedule will make a difference one way or another overall.

I think first of all, ITV has to get back on a more even level to BBC1 in terms of number of hours of drama they're airing. I posted something a few weeks back to show that BBC1 has aired about 50 hours more drama at 9pm so far this year. It's a huge difference considering for decades, ITV used to air more drama. Drama doesn't always rate well, we saw that yesterday. But what it will do is it makes ITV look on a more similar footing to BBC1 and make it stand out from most channels which don't air original British drama. Of course it would mean extra investment in the schedules but when the company is making profits of £500m a year, I don't see why they wouldn't be able to? Sure, a flop drama (3m) is loss-making, where-as a flop factual (1.5m) could still probably make a tiny profit due to how much cheaper a factual show costs to make - hence why ITV currently have the strategy of having a select few ambitious/big shows (which makes lots of profit) with the rest of the schedule full of cheap fillers which break even. But it's a poor strategy in the long-term IMO and they're better off increasing the ratio of drama in their schedule, even if it means that they're making a slight loss on the flop dramas (3m) as opposed to having cheap factual in their place.

The problem at the moment is ITV are not launching enough new shows from the key genres (drama and entertainment) to find the hits. Drama has a hit rate of about 1 in 3. Entertainment has a hit rate of about 1 in 5. ITV has only launched three 6+ episode new dramas this year (Homefront, Unforgotten, Jekyll and Hyde). So statistically speaking, only one of them was ever going to be a success. That's simply not enough. ITV should be launching 9 or 10 new dramas (6+eps) in a year, so that they can find 3 new drama hits in that year which can return the following year - sure, it means there'll be more flops along the way too, but it's the best way of going about it instead of putting your eggs in just one or two baskets. BBC One has already launched 7 new dramas with 6+ episodes so far this year, and I'm sure they'll have one or two more by the end of the year - out of those 7 they've found hits in Poldark and Doctor Foster, although of course there's been flops along the way such as the Interceptor and Jonathan Strange. But you'd rather be in that position than ITV's which is to launch just 3 new dramas in an entire year and putting your eggs in such a small basket.

As for entertainment, I know it's such a tough genre to crack and virtually every broadcaster is struggling to find the next big thing. But none of their new shows this year sounded like the type of show which had huge ambition or could become big. Ninja Warrior did pretty well at 4m but that was never going to be something more than just a 4m type of show - and next year when it doesn't have a BGT lead-out and faces something much tougher than Atlantis such as The Voice, it may well fall. But you know, the entertainment department haven't launched anything exciting-sounding with ambition for a couple of years now (since Splash ironically, which in the end was crap but at least sounded like it was on a bigger scale than a revival of Catchphrase). How are ITV going to find the next big entertainment show by just reviving old shows like Palladium/Surprise Surprise/Catchphrase etc - they can guarantee you a fairly okay/solid audience but theyre so obviously not going to be the next big thing and get people talking. They've not announced a single new entertainment show for 2016 yet even though we're two months away, so next year may well be another entertainment washout with them relying on the same old entertainment shows doing slightly lower numbers than the year before.

So ITV were wrong in axing DOI which was tanking, but everyone's calling for The X Factor to be dropped...

How does it make sense?

Plus at the time, comments were like... DOI was crap, it was just a ego trip for Schofie, and just a copycat of Strictly, now suddenly it's ITV's saviour...

It would just be like Family Fortunes and Take Me Out, plodding along being a distant second best.

You would have done well to actually read what was posted instead of making up or overblowing other people's points. The above post was a really good analysis of ITV's current problems, the issue with their mindset and where they need to go in the next few years. DOI is not a show that I ever liked and it was clearly fading but in context of today's ratings, it could still have a place in the channel. Instead of killing the whole thing, they could have reduced the show a little or rested it for a year. I'm not sure it's the best example to use though because it already has had a ton of revamps. But the main point was that it was show that was doing decent numbers still and axed without any real attempt to replace it and make up that 6 million or so viewers that were still tuning in.

It'll take a few years to rehab the channel completely though.

I had the misfortune of seeing about 5 mins of Pick Me this afternoon and it was real 'what the hell is this' bad. It felt a bit like something you would see at Butlins (if they still exist).

Wrong.

I thought Jekyll and Hyde was much more like Partners in Crime with a few more monsters than anything else. I don't think the promotion has been any good - this thread explained ithe story to me better than the trailer did. And perhaps I'm just missing the appeal of the story. But I honestly don't think this would be a hit on BBC1 either. Merlin had a warmth to it, as did Russel T Davies Dr Who. I can't see that inJekyll yet.

Of course it may yet be a hit - it may do well on catch up if the word of mouth is good.

Good post by rzt. An added complication to also mention is the fact that advertisers demand those younger viewers. Which leads to endless catch 22 situations. Commission loads of dramas for 9pm, but as BBC1/ITV mainstream high rating dramas almost always skew old, the advertisers still wouldn't be happy. Alternatively commission programmes younger viewers are more likely to like, but as younger viewers don't watch as much TV and tend to pick and choose niche shows on digital channels or US series, then nobody watches those either. This will be why they keep trying with these male skewing adventure style shows even though they never work.

They could still run more old skewing dramas in some slots though, the question is though will the shareholders be happy with lower profits and a lower dividend. Will the crisis then just move from the ratings pages to the business news pages? (Or end up across both considering the ratings wouldn't increase for a couple of years after the money started being spent)

Don't know if it's been said but 1.68m consolidated for the first episode of walking dead is that a record ?

Yes that is a record. It's previous best was last season for episode 4 which averaged 1.32m (inc +1) in the consolidated numbers. If you add +1 to your number it's on a huge 1.73m. Absolutely huge numbers for FOX. It seems to be going the same way Game of Thrones is going now - getting bigger every season.




As for last night. Solid for Strictly - but down 0.8m y-o-y. XF lost its way in the space of a week due to the awful live judges houses episodes. I can see the live shows rating around 6m with the results not much higher. It doesn't matter what they do now. It just keeps going down. Shame about J&H. I watched it last night. It was okay. But putting it against Strictly means any chance of making it a success are limited.

As for Homeland. What is going on? The first few seasons rated well and then things went down a bit for seasons 3 and 4 - but what has happened to season 5? Those are dreadful numbers. Season 4 was particularly well received too and a much needed return to form (bar the awful finale). So it's a bit odd that things have all of a sudden fallen off a cliff.

I'm not surprised BBC1 has had a much better year than ITV.

There's been a real lack of content on ITV this year. I always think that ITV has a "darker" feel to it than BBC. I see BBC as lighter, more modern and more mainstream. ITV has a few good dramas, but what else does it have? BBC has a much wider variety of quality - entertainment, drama, comedy.

I can never imagine something as fun and light as Bake Off on ITV.

Great post rzt. The thing is, now ITV have mde so much profit, money should be re-invested.

ITV LE dept is awful. Either relying on bringing back onld shows, or buying in a format. Factual is also poor. There is no ambition as there was with BBC1 The Met which I think skewed fairly young.

Instead they commission - The Nick, Rookies. These sort of series could fit well in daytime, but compared to the BBC series pale in comparison.

The schedule rely's on the same decling sows to prop up the schedule. Surrounding it with cheap LE which dies anyway, and the main show decling each year.

The bosses at ITV said they would rectify the problems they faced in 2014 and would more likely pull the underperfoming shows. But sice this year gradually got going, we saw so many sub2m series poping up, so much so that if they moved them, they would be removing the entire schedule.

This Christmas, the ITV programming is looking the best they've had in years, but I imagine they will just suffer more low ratings against BBC1 whre viewers just naturally turn to BBC1 at Chrustmas.

They need to make sure Christmas in a success and get the New Yearo ff to a good start, otherwise 2016 could be even worse, with even bigger drama flops.

This would be a poor post at the best of times, but considering what it's in response to, it's really crap.

If it was easy, ITV wouldn't be paying people like Fincham and Berg telephone-number salaries.

But if you take the money, you also have to accept the challenge - and those two are failing.

There is no bigger con than the youth demo.

When ABC started in America ratings were disastrous compared to NBC and CBS. So they said to advertisers "Look at us! We have lots of young people watching. They spend more than older viewers. Come on advertisers! Give us your money!"

And the advertising industry fell for it and the TV industry fell for it. CBS and NBC ditched some successful shows as they didn't get enough viewers.

Chasing the youth demo is one of the worst things to happen to the TV industry. Especially now that older viewers now aren't like older viewers of 20/30 years ago. They watch more TV and also have more money than younger viewers. They also help boost overall ratings numbers.

It's BROADcasting not NARROWcasting!

I missed Match Of The Day 2 as it moved to BBC2. It was meant to be on BBC1 and Sky series link is useless when a programme changes channel. I think quite a few were caught out by this.

Jekyll and Hyde was just on too early.
Nothing to do with whether it was unsuitable for kids or not, it just simply didn't feel right being on that early for what it was.

I read somewhere that the intention was to broadcast it that early to get more viewers, stating that they were after the same viewers who would usually watch Doctor Who.
But I think they got that wrong for a start because Doctor Who is usually on quite a bit later itself.
A few years ago they showed Doctor Who at around 6.30pm now and again and it lost viewers.

Jekyll and Hyde is a fair bit better than Demons which ITV tried a few years ago, but I think they've really bungled with its scheduling.

I agree it was on too early. I have young kids, so watched it on itv-Player after they'd gone to bed.

But, aside from the poor scheduling, it just wasn't a very good commission. I'm originally from Edinburgh, so I love the story. But the truth is, most people find the whole thing a bit uncomfortable.

The BBC ran a modern-day interpretation about 10 years ago, written by Steven Moffat and starring Jimmy Nesbitt. If I remember correctly, it started OK but then fell to about 3.3m - which, at the time, was REALLY bad for BBC1. Quite why ITV thought their new version would have mass appeal is beyond me.

It could grow, but I do think it needs to be on at 7.30pm at least.
Put it on too early and people naturally assume that it's just kidstuff.