ITV would provide fewer regional programmes, including news bulletins, under proposals from regulator Ofcom. The broadcaster has been advised to concentrate on providing original output which has been made in the UK. It would be allowed to show fewer daytime news bulletins, but only after it "restructured" its news operations in England and the Scottish Borders. Ofcom has been looking at the future of public service broadcasting at a time when advertising income is falling.
From the BBC News Website
What the hell is happening to ITV? The commercial channel - not so long ago the only commercial channel in the UK - has steadily gone downhill in recent years. The standards of programmes it makes now is, with the odd exception, quite poor. Some people accuse the BBC of dumbing down but the masters of this are ITV who seem to think their rapidly diminishing number of viewers have the attention span of a goldfish.
Living in Edinburgh, I'm served - although I use the term loosely - by STV. Now, in fairness to the Scottish boys and girls, there have been some decent programmes made north of the border. Rebus and Taggart, for example, are quite superb. However the main output from ITV these days is, quite frankly, awful. The jewel in the crown of the independent station is the soap opera Coronation Street. But, having been around for nearly fifty years, even that is looking distinctly tacky and moving ever further from reality.
The proposal from Ofcom that ITV cuts its regional news programmes is desperate. STV's Scotland Today is hugely popular with its anchor presenter John Mackay an authoritative voice. To cut this programme - and STV has already dropped Scotsport after more than fifty years - may signal the beginning of the end for the commercial station in Scotland. Viewers in Aberdeen have already seen the loss of Grampian Television - STV may suffer the same fate.
I fear ITV may be going down the same crass road as American television. Round the clock advertisements and messages from sponsors which are interrupted by television programmes. It's somewhat ironic that ITV is still broadcasting some of the quality programmes its used to make in days gone by on its Freeview stations ITV3 and ITV4. The likes of The Sweeney, Minder, Upstairs Downstairs, Rebus, Taggart are still shown regularly on these two channels. And, I suspect, still viewed by those who yearn for the days when there was quality programmes to watch on the box.
But not, sadly, I assume from anyone at Ofcom...
1 comment:
At least US commercial television does local news. They are not stupid enough to think that people in Hawick will sit through local news from Cleethorpes and the Rugby League scores AND watch the adverts.
Here in Adelaide some of the commercial local news is read from Sydney and Melbourne at certain times of the day. No we don't want to know about rugby league and murders in neighbourhoods we have never heard of.
Not very different from every business model in the world. Cut costs, cut quality, cut, cut.
What is the point of the news in the first place. Telling you about what is going on in your community.
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