…Or does it? Like the reports of Mark Twain’s death, the excitement in the broadcasting trade press about ITV’s supposed re-entry to the market is to say the least premature. ITV is spinning a small amount of money into a success story, but the reality is not so dramatic. Some of the new shows being discussed by the broadcaster were already in the pipeline – the tail end of deals they were forced to honour from programmes “green-lit” for production before they decided to halt commissioning. There are some commitments to new money – but these are nothing like the figures from a few years ago when ITV used to spend upwards of £30m per year on a wide range of programmes for all ages.
The new productions are also not fully funded – even programmes they used to fund previously in their entirety are now international co-productions, with ITV providing less than half the money they used to, and therefore less than half their budget.
Let’s not be churlish. It’s great that Emma Tennant at ITV wants to get new and well-made programmes for the CITV Channel. But this is a very small step – not an exciting “new dawn”. But every little helps - so Save Kids’ TV welcomes the Sleeping Giant back to the garden and asks “when are you going to use some of that advertising revenue from your successful digital channel to plant some really big potatoes?
17th March 2008
