Sounds good. I used to read Anthony Horowitz books, and enjoyed them.

As you said, it would be good if they put it across 1 week like Criminal Justice.

That sounds very good, and as though it could work nightly.

Was watching Return to...Airport and I am surprised that these programmes were in primetime pulling in 6m 10 years ago leading to docusoaps in prime time. Nowadays, docusoaps are relegated to primetime or as filler.

It would be interesting to know what the TV trend is at the moment.

Think is if neighbours moved is earlier it might lose viewers.

I just read about this on BoxZone and was going to post it, it sounds fantastic to me. Fincham is making good decisions with commissions.

Let's pray once he's got some ready for 2009 he rejigs the schedule to make it better, so these commissions have the best places to go in an ordered lineup.

Well, you could complicate this issue even more because Tuesday & Thursday could also change. So, I'd have:-

Monday: Police, Camera, Action
Tuesday: Marco's Great British Feast
Wednesday: Doc Martin
Thursday: Documentary
Friday: Frost

Fincham needs to create slots, something Grade & Shaps didn't know what to do.

The Monday 8:30pm slot needs to be given up for new comedy commissions, adding more weight to the schedule - we will see Monday's go down in the peaktime share but Corrie's audience will be beneficiary in the long term.

The Friday 8:30pm slot needs to be opened up for new 90 minute drama serials or repeats. It can be the one slot where 90 minute programmes are produced. This hopefully will not knock ITV's share that much.

The Thursday 8pm slot should be for new US imports like Pushing Daisies while being for new original in-house drama commissions and factual commissions.

The Tuesday 8pm slot can be split between factual series and as part of a 2 hour drama repeat night during Champions League coverage, therefore viewers can edge in and out of Tuesday evenings as they will be inconsistently offering for different audiences. This should bring Tuesday's share up a bit.

The Sunday 7pm slot should be permanently given to The Royal and Heartbeat. It looks like this is happening already, as The Royal has slipped into this slot met by an increased viewership. I predicted this earlier in about February - so I'm happy ITV have done this and that I was thinking on the same lines.

The Sunday 8pm slot for 8 months of a year (excluding X Factor results show and Dancing on Ice when Sunday's are heavily advertised and promoted for 16-34) will be for 2 hour dramas. ITV have plenty to commission, with about 7 shelved for the moment, and 4 or more episodes of established 2 hour dramas like Marple, Poirot, Midsomer & Foyle for the future.

The Saturday slots need to be regular in my opinion, and I have an idea in how to open the schedule right up. Most programming on Saturday's recently have been 1hr 15mins long. Therefore, if ITV organised the slots like this, it could work all year round, excluding special evenings for sport and entertainment.

6:00pm You've Been Framed [fixed slot]
6:30pm Harry Hill's TV Burp / Soapington Way / TV Burp Gold
7:00pm Creature Comforts + Primeval / Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway / Beat the Star
8:15pm All or Nothing / The X Factor / Britain's Got Talent / new commissions against Lottery
9:30pm Saturday Night with Piers Morgan / Al Murray's Happy Hour / The Frank Skinner Show
10:30pm The Late News
10:45pm The Weekend Programme
11:30pm Football League Review [scheduled after MOTD on BBC1]

Brilliant ideas for Saturday, sounds very logical and doable. I disagree with most of the rest though I stand by what I said the other day, which is this:

Saturday
[as yours, without YBF]

Sunday
7.00 You've Been Framed (fixed slot)
7.30 Entertainment / X Factor Results
8.30 The Bill (fixed slot)
9.30 Edgier drama with a cult edge - i.e. Pushing Daisies, Afterlife
10.30 Late News

Monday
8.00 Tonight (1 hour)
9.00 Drama

Tuesday
8.00 Coronation Street
8.30 Filler (or extended special Corrie)
9.00 Drama

Wednesday
8.00 2 hour, one off drama slot

Thursday
8.00 Coronation Street
8.30 The Bill
9.30 Dedicated comedy slot

Friday
8.00 Heartbeat / Royal / Wild at Heart
9.00 Kingdom / Doc Martin or other older dramas

This way, all hours of programming stay the same, with 1 hour of Tonight in total, 5x30 of Corrie, and 2x60 of The Bill. It's just better structured and ready for the Wednesday shakeup with football. In case no one saw, I made a table of this schedule (which would have a 7.30pm episode of Corrie on Wednesdays until the football, at which point it would permanently scale down to 4 a week): http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/4594/itvuw4.jpg

All right but Heartbeat up against Eastenders?

Said this before, I don't think it would hurt either show that much.

I think it's a pretty good idea. Both shows attract different types of audiences. EE being the younger audience, and Heartbeat being the older audience. It might knock a little bit of Heartbeat's ratings having it against EE for 30 mins, but it still would perform well in my opinion. Especially with a Corrie lead-in.

It would pretty much help ITV1 dominate from 8-10pm on Fridays. Typically the younger 16-34s are out on Friday nights, and with ITV putting on dramas for older people, it would make sense.

ITV should then concentrate on making Sundays the entertainment evening, when more 16-34s are watching TV.

Well everyone I know over 35 that watches Eastenders also watches Heartbeat.
And I'm one of them.

Thanks for speaking for the whole viewing public.

I accept what you say but still stand by my notion that 8pm Friday being the Royal/Heartbeat slot would work, and very well.

Why change a winning formula on Sunday's?

I think Sunday could be the day when ITV gets the largest quantity of viewers for all ages to its digital channel portfolio as well as ITV1.

How about an exciting Sunday night on ITV2 to contrast ITV1's drama? A heavily advertised campaign of 'The ITV2 Sunday Marathon' with music before 6pm maybe. It will add weight to ITV2's already established schedule during the week.

6:00pm You've Been Framed
6:30pm TV Burp Gold
7:00pm Who Dares Sings
8:00pm 50 Greatest TV Moments [like Sky One, a few poll shows which can grab anything up to 1m]
10:00pm Family Guy [the acquisition with Fox makes this deal more likely]
10:30pm American Dad

This would be the best way in attracting 16-34s on a Sunday night without harming what is on ITV1.

ITV3 could also benefit from what's going on ITV1 to create a new 'gameshow' night. Something completely different on ITV3 could build up its reputation.

6:00pm Bullseye
6:30pm Catchphrase
7:00pm The Golden Shot
8:00pm Blockbusters
9:00pm Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
10:00pm Mr & Mrs
10:30pm Bullseye

And ITV4 could have a sports night offering some sophisticated documentaries on some of sport's biggest stars as well as some of football's greatest archive coverage - like the Champions League Final of 1999 & 2005. More people will watch ITV4 and it will become respected for these documentaries and second showings of successful moments in our history, much like BBC Four, which has become successful because of brilliant scheduling.

7:00pm Police, Camera, Action
8:00pm Champions League Final 1999
9:30pm Sir Alex Ferguson: Moments, Memories & Misery
10:30pm The Best of Big Fight
11:00pm The Weekend Programme [a current affairs round-up]

ITV's digital platform can be built & it'll show people how in about 5 years time, good multi-channel offerings will be able to compete with the Top 5 on occasions.

I see ITV1's 10-part run of The Royal is going to be split by a few episodes of Heartbeat from July 27th!

PJ why are you talking about messing with a winning Sunday night formula? I thought weekends were supposed to be entertainment now. Why else did they axe Sunday's Corrie?

I'm one and I don't watch either.

1-1

I think some change is needed to help ITV do well on weeknights. It's always done well on Sundays because of these older dramas. But now, ITV are starting to focus more on 16-34s (and to be fair to ITV, they've done quite well in that department this year).

ITV have said that they want to make weekends entertainment weekends, soap-free. I think it could extend to having weekends free of Heartbeat/The Royal/Midsomer Murders. It might not impress some people, but they will probably catch up with it on weeknights.

Then ITV can focus on having entertainment shows on Sundays. It's a gamble- but if it pays off, it could really help them.

I know! Why can't ITV just leave them alone for once?!

I've been in contact with ITV about this for sometime. And they are doing this to see if Heartbeat can fit into a 7pm slot on a permanent basis. So, they will do 2 cross-over episodes of Heartbeat, and back to The Royal again.

This will help them make a decision on the full 7pm-8pm slot.

And IMO it would pull off easily. Fridays is well skewed to a Heartbeat audience, and a lineup of Emmerdale, Corrie, Heartbeat, Kingdom and News at Ten is perfect IMO.

Sunday is a good night to target 16-34s with shows like The Bill, X Factor results and other younger entertainment and edgier drama like Pushing Daisies or Afterlife.

As previously mentioned, The Bill is to crossover with German cop show SOKO Leipzig but what is filmed will differ depending on the show.

Also, The producers of the Bill and SOKO are in talks of producing a new show. Whether this a serial like The Bill or a series but it is great to see more international co-productions.

I read somewhere that the Royal off to late September

They axed Corrie & Emmerdale from Sunday's because it wasn't getting a good 16-34 audience ON THAT DAY IN COMPARISON TO OTHER DAYS because it was being put around shows that appealed to older audiences. Therefore, they thought it best to keep it to weeknights so younger viewers were able to tune in around similar programming from 8pm like The Bill and other programming from 9pm on Monday's and Friday's, as well as being sandwiched between EastEnders, which is a popular re-bound tactic to get some of EastEnder's loyal audience too.

Then, rather stupidly in my opinion, ITV commissioned 'Beat the Star' for Sunday nights, which appealed to the 16-34 audience, mainly because Saturday nights were clogged with other programming and the 1hr and 15mins of broadcast did not fit in.

By removing Emmerdale and Coronation Street, which still brings in older audiences, but also brings in younger audiences, it allows ITV1 to aim at a specific audience all night. It's important when offering programming for the older generation that programming is similar all night, therefore viewers will stay with the channel all night. Despite not being favourite with the advertisers, the quantity of audience from older people on Sunday nights give ITV a good sophisticated image, and will obtain ITV's status of being the only commercial TV channel to bring in mass audiences, something advertisers always want.

Coronation Street & Emmerdale got in the way of ITV's Sunday night objective, which was to bring a 2 hour regular slot with shows like Foyle's War and Midsomer Murders, starting at 8pm and finishing at 10pm (therefore getting the maximum possible audience). More ABC viewers watch these dramas and it can only help ITV's reputation. With more ABC viewers watching on a Sunday, it can expand ITV's reputation for dramas during the week.

However, there has been much debate within ITV about Sunday nights, and this year has been used for 'experimentation' despite the risk of killing the night altogether, albeit being it small.

Perhaps the 7pm Sunday slot might end up with Heartbeat and The Royal being shown on alternate weeks, much like Dynasty and The Colbys on BBC One on Fridays in 1986.