TV Weekly: ITV Special

Insiders at ITV Yorkshire inform ATV News that ITVplc will announce the future – or lack of it – of Yorkshire’s Leeds based studios tomorrow. In this TV Weekly special we take a look back at the recent ITV news from suggested mergers with Channel 4 and Five to other none ITVplc regions taking a stand against the ITV1 nationalised network.

ITV Suggests Merger with Channel 4 and Five

Reports towards the end of February 2009 suggested that ITV had discussed a draft plan with ministers suggesting that the Channel 3 regional network be able to merge with other national broadcasters Channel 4 and Five. The suggestion was placed at a meeting of the Digital Britain Review Board which is being overseen by Communications Minister, Lord Carter.

The latest suggestion follows proposals by the lacklustre and rather inept British media regulator Ofcom that Channel 4 and the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide could be combined into one new body in order to safeguard Channel 4’s public service requirements. It was also mooted that Channel 4 could join forces with the Five network.

Jumping in on the act, ITV proposed a bigger idea, one which would reform the British commercial broadcasting sector significantly. And most importantly, for ITV, it would save the broadcaster lots of money. If the suggestion by ITV was to be accepted it would make the new formation the biggest commercial broadcaster in the UK, controlling up to 60% of the television advertising market. Currently, the maximum allowed by the Office of Fair Trading is 25%. This would also be seen as bad news for advertisers as choice and gaining good deals would be severely reduced.

An ITV spokesperson commented last month: “ITV is currently preparing its response to the Government invitation to all parties to undertake blue-sky thinking on the future of public service broadcasting.

“Every broadcaster, along with the Government and Ofcom, is therefore seeking radical solutions to the problem of how to provide sustainable, guaranteed public service competition to the BBC. ITV is fully engaged in that debate, which must include exploring all options for the future, including a number of radical ideas.”

STV Proves ‘Regional ITV’ Still Works

While ITVplc would have you believe local television in Britain is dying out – only due to internal sabotage – STV, part of the local ITV network, have proved that regional production and services are still popular with viewers. So much so, STV plan to ditch some of the network offerings from ITV Productions.

STV currently run two local ITV regions, STV North (formerly Grampian TV) and STV South (formerly Scottish Television), announced this week that their regional advertising revenue is up 11 per cent from this time last year. The company over the last 12 months has also increased local programming production. STV also announced that their pre-tax profit had also increased, up to £12.3m in 2008 from £4.4m the previous year.

STV’s target for the local advertising market share for the year was 21pc and in the final count, it achieved 22pc for the year, up from 20pc in 2000. This increase has seen STV bosses consider ditching some ITV Productions from its schedule to be replace with ‘more popular’ homegrown programming. Shows in the firing line include Piers Morgan’s chat show and Al Murray’s Happy Hour.

Union Blames ITV Management For Current Dire Situation

Bectu’s general secretary Gerry Morrissey commented that “ITV is suffering at the hands of is own senior management,”

“Far from being the saviour of ITV, Michael Grade has lacked the courage to shake off the approach of his predecessor, Charles Allen, and not surprisingly ITV has continued to toil under his leadership. ITV’s management has seriously lost its way.”

“When the merged ITV was launched in 2003 the combined staff was 8,000. We are now at a point where the company is looking to continue operations, with half that number of staff. The threat to jobs, both staff and freelance, and to skills, inherent in this proposal is a tragedy for television production…”

“The company has failed to invest effectively in programme-making and senior executives have taken huge sums out of the company, not for improving the company’s performance, but for cutting staff numbers.”

ITV Yorkshire To Close

At one time Yorkshire Television was one of the main contributors to the ITV Network, with an endless list of national programming. Today it was announced that the Leeds based home of YTV is to close with the loss of nearly 600 jobs.

While shows such as Heartbeat and The Royal have already been ditched only Emmerdale will remain in production in Yorkshire at its own studio base. ITV blame financial problems on the closure, however looking at their financial report its hard to see, other than for greed and shareholder appease, why ITV would need to close the ITV Yorkshire facilities.

Looking at itvplc.com the full financial report shows a far from the withering company. ITV1, the regional and national channel, costs £979 million to operate; with £112 million of that fund going on local ITV productions. While no regional statistics are shown the ITV1 channel brings in a profit of £1,127 million.

GMTV costs £34 million and brings in revenue of £56 million. While the ITV digital channels such as ITV2 and CITV cost £112 million per year to run and bring in revenue of £242 million.

ITV certainly are not making as much profit as they once were, but they are still making a healthy income. The global climate and financial problems are clearly a cover for excessive shareholder greed.

Actor Chris Chittell, who plays Eric Pollard in YTV soap Emmerdale, commented on todays announcement that Yorkshire’s Kirkstall Road studios were doomed: “It is a terrible shock and Yorkshire makes wonderful programmes and has done for many years. To say these studios are no longer viable is questionable to say the least. We have made brilliant programmes in the past and will continue to do so.”

Yorkshire Television launched in 1968, celebrating forty years of production in the Leeds studios last year. Popular programmes made by YTV include The Darling Buds Of May, Winner Takes All, Rising Damp, 321, Countdown, Home To Roost, 3D, Follyfoot, A Touch Of Frost and Sez Les with Les Dawson.

The studios are also home to a division of ITV Archive. The archives at the complex store past ITV productions such as the networks third longest-running soap Crossroads, the daytime saga of the 1970s General Hospital, dramas such as Boon and Peak Practice and classic game shows such as The Price Is Right, Celebrity Squares and The Golden Shot.