I think it would be incredibly stupid to ban drama and comedy from Tuesdays and Thursdays. Both channels have had success there in the past. If I were ITV, I'd be aiming to have a new show each night of the week in either drama or comedy at 9pm. Sticking cheap factual on at 9pm isn't a good idea unless it's something relevant or popular like the Investigator series or Long Lost Family. Putting Paul O'Grady on at 9 is going to allow the BBC to swoop in with a show that might become huge and claim that night as theirs.

Look at the state ITV is in now on Wednesdays at 8. The behemoth of Bake-Off up against All Star Mr and Mrs. If ITV had been smart, they'd have recognised the threat of Bake-Off two years ago and put something worthy of a fight up against it. But they rolled over and that, in combination with Doctor Foster last year allowed the BBC to dominate from 8-10 on a Wednesday. If Our Girl does well tonight after Bake-Off, I think it's safe to say it's a dead zone for ITV until Bake-Off starts losing some viewers.

At this moment I don't think there's enough money to spread things so thinly across the whole week. Hence suggesting a structured, focused approach which viewers would get into the habit of remembering.

Knowing they can more or less guaranteed find new drama on Sun/Mon/Wed at 9pm would work well I think and is achievable (though a challenge!). Maybe once that is really nailed in with successful commissions running all year round, they can start looking at more for Tue/Thu/Fri.

Also by "Factual" I meant stuff like Long Lost Family, Paul O'Grady's Dogs, Trevor McDonald and Joanna Lumley mini-series. Not absolute tat. I think they should just go for that audience on Tues/Thurs and make them dedicated to that sort of thing.

Concentrate the schedule a bit more and make it a bit more predictable so viewers get into viewing habits again. Not everyone goes through a TV guide with a pen finding shows, IMO, and it takes a spectacular drama to get viewers into the habit of watching on Tues/Thurs/Fri IMO... they are just not 'drama nights'.

I love some of these ideas, especially the idea of The Bill becoming like the Chicago franchise in the US. I have just started all 3 Chicago Fire/Med/PD series and I really like them and I'm looking forward to Chicago Justice starting next year. ITV have tried a medical drama before though 'Always And Everyone' was that sucessful?.

This is the case with Tuesday's to, BBC One has Eastenders, Holby and Drama so from 7:30 - 10:00 it's the channel I watch. ITV have Love Your Garden which is shown Tuesday's at 8 but anything else shown this year hasn't been sucessful at all.

This - leave BBC1 to do drama all night on Tuesdays. Counter with factual all evening on ITV - cheaper at 8pm like Love Your Garden, more expensive at 9 like Trevor McDonald on Death Row.

Sun/Mon/Wed are the best days for ITV drama in my opinion, they should aim to fill the 9pm slot on these days all year round with new and returning drama series and leave other formats/genres to the other days without exception.

Irs a black and white view to say bring this old show back or that old show back because they were popular once apart from when they were axed for falling ratings.

If you want a drama at 8pm put a new one there instead of old programming that was way past its sell by date when it ended. Do that too often and you have a lazy, dull, unimaginative schedule going after an ever dwindling audience instead of finding a new audience.

A schedule in 2017 overrun with revivals instead of new programming that can find an audience? Really?

No! Make it stop! Make it stop!

ITV isn't winning some timeslots! Let's bring back all the old stuff it made and bung that on! NO! You find new, good programmes to replace them!

Britain's Rookie Cops (formerly known as Rookies): 1.9m (9.7%) inc. +1

I posted on here that she said this live on This Morning one day in 2015 when she was still covering for Holly, so quite a while ago now. All I recall her saying was that there had been discussions about the show returning - not specifically for her to return with it.

She said that there were ways around her being dead in the show. Though I think she was mostly joking or fishing for a part there. Stephen Tomkinson had also mentioned that there was some consideration to bringing it back but that was all.

Again that was last year - so it has gone very quiet if it is being brought back as the biggest problem was the cost and the need of uprooting cast to pack up and move to Africa for months for filming.

I recall suggesting they could easily get round that by having them all return to the UK and set up an African Wild Life theme park with the help of a millionaire - a bit like the one they have in Florida. They could film a bit over in Africa involving the bringing over of animals for the park and so on, thus keeping that element but cutting down the time needed to spend over there.

Whoa there, calm it kermit - The Bill and Wild at Heart were much loved shows that were axed, that were pillars of the Sunday night and mid-week schedule.

You're losing your mind over the idea of bringing back two shows which would run for no more than 8-16 weeks each initially. Revivals can work; it's important to look forward but that doesn't mean you can't ever look back.

Weird sort of false paradigm you have going on here where you're suggesting you can't have one without the other. Look at the revived sitcoms and Cold Feet, there's an appetite for looking back as long as it's not overdone. Bringing back The Bill and Wild at Heart would still leave 100s of hours of programming slots for new things.

I'm talking here about re-establishing slots for viewers to expect certain things. Pre-watershed drama on Sun/Wed with a 8-episode Wild at Heart revival and a 16-episode Bill revival. That's still well over 60 hours of free slot for all the new ideas - but it re-establishes the intention to air drama there.

Odd how animated and anxious you've got over the idea of something which has always happened in TV happening again on a very moderate level.

I googled it earlier and the most recent news was back in May so only a few months ago. It was in the Fabulous magazine in The Sun. Seems like there are still plans for it to go ahead.
I think that it would need to be set in the same place as before otherwise it wouldn't work really.

If something better is on people will watch. While Holby City was getting 3/4m on BBC1 in 2013 Bake Off was getting 5/6m on BBC2. ITV put Lewis against River on Tuesday's at 9pm and Lewis did better.

Put on good programmes and people will watch.

I bow to your superior knowledge! I just had a look and The Trouble with Harry was their Christmas Eve film. Still billed as a premiere though, which was odd for a 30 year old film.

It seems that people always forget about the huge hitters of the day and remember the stuff that didn't do as well. Like now, Pride and Prejudice is considered one of the best (if not *the* best) Jane Austen adaptation and is critically acclaimed, but people rarely talk about London's Burning. Edge of Darkness has been popular on DVD recently and did respectably enough on the Beeb, but you don't hear people talking about Minder so much these days, which just trundled on for 15 years getting 10m+ viewers each week.

It'll be the same in a few years. I can't imagine people wistfully talking about Downton Abbey or Mrs Brown's Boys, but I can see shows like Humans on Channel 4 or The Crimson Field being remembered, even though they weren't the biggest hits.

Having said that, I think people are more attuned to quality these days. People seem to really seek out the good content, mostly. In the 80s, a show like The Night Manager would've never been the No. 1 show in its timeslot, but it seems today's audiences are a bit more discerning and quality shows usually do end up popular if scheduled right.

That's my point ITV aren't trying hard enough!. Lewis is another popular series that has been axed. River wasn't popular so hasn't been renewed.

No sh*t Sherlock - but you seem to have a flagrant disregard for scheduling and the importance of building viewer habits through a predictable schedule in terms of genre which has solid foundations.

A lot of shows have failed because either they were scheduled on the wrong day, or because the schedule surrounding them made the whole evening a wasteland. This is a major symptom of the abandonment at ITV of shaping the whole schedule's atmosphere and vibe; they've ripped a lot of it up and just throw shows anywhere nowadays. It's no surprise their most successful day (Monday) has kept the same format (soap followed by big drama at 9).

There's no rhyme or reason in ITV's schedule (beyond Monday) and viewers like to see rhyme and reason in the skeleton of the schedule. It's one thing the BBC does well, it devised a scheduling pattern and structure which is memorable and has stuck to it. Loads of room for new shows but in rigid slots and within well-built primetime schedules with solid foundations.

Sarah Lancashire tells The Sun the next series of Happy Valley will be the last

Scheduling alternatives works even against juggernauts can work, Ben Frow mentioned that GPs did 0.9m against Bake Off which he was very pleased with since it usually does over 1m,

Speaking of 8pm, Monday to Thursday is pretty solid for 5, it's just 9pm and Friday to Sunday they need to sort out

The location of Wild at Heart - though - was the main reason it was axed. Not ratings. The cost was huge and some of the cast were not willing to commit to half a year in another country indefinitely.

I always wonder why the BBC never brought Spooks back. It was a hit, always got about 7m viewers except in its last series, which got about 6m on average. There was no reason to end it really. If any show should be revived, it should be that, mainly because you could have a new cast with just Harry Pearce returning and it would feel like a fresh show. The film last year was very successful, so I think there's an appetite for it.

Lewis ended because the leads decided they didn't want to do it anymore.

That's because you can reestablish slots with new shows. Make something new in the spirit of something old and you can get an audience. The Halcyon sounds like an updated version of The Royal. That's more like it. Be inspired by the past like BGT being a modern twist on Opportunity Knocks.

I'm just worried that with endless old shows returning it leaves less space for good new programming. Wild At Heart should never have ended in the first place. It was still rating well. The others you mentioned that you want to bring back weren't rating well at the end. Don't bring those ones back.

Thanks for that. Not really a surprise though as Sarah Lancashire actually wanted Series 2 to be the last. So, we are in effect getting an extra series out of her anyway.

Yes that's the problem, however alot of the cast seem to want to return if it is revived.

Benidorm is the same with the cast moving to another country for half a year, I believe that is why the Garvey family left. Derren Litten has finished writing series 9 now and I noticed the other day on Twitter he said that series 10 will probably be the last.

Bob Says New Faces.

Oh yes I agree. But I don't think Long Lost Family or Mr and Mrs is really a good alternative to Bake-Off. Now, if they put something like Ninja Warrior there or Midsomer Murders, you could see some nice ratings on both sides. At least they're fighting back at 9 this year with DCI Banks which, whilst not a monster, might just be enough to lure viewers away from the start of Our Girl if they watched part 1 of DCI Banks last week. After all, that method worked well enough with Victoria to knock 2m off Poldark's overnights.

Yes, Monday to Thursday is very good for 5. They really need something returnable for Fridays though. I think the lack of a soap isn't helping them. I'd even consider moving the repeat of Neighbours into primetime at 9 paired with another 30 minute show, either comedy or import drama. If Neighbours was on at 9 it might give them enough viewers to launch something off the back of it. Could Five acquire the rights to Fair City? I'm not sure why no UK broadcaster has picked it up.

Thanks for that, I've never watched Lewis before to be honest and just saw a story online before the 9th series saying it was to be the last so assumed it had been axed.