Sentimentality is fine as long as it doesn’t start to inflict any
serious pain - and sentimentality about News at Ten has been more
damaging to ITV than most people would care to admit. Attempting to
build world-class media businesses while having to ask permission every
time you so much as want to tie your shoelaces must be soul
destroying.
But following last week’s decision, we face a brave new world. ITV can
leave the 1967 schedule (when News at Ten was originally launched)
cornerstone behind and move boldly into 1998 and beyond. The final act
of the tired old melodrama was nicely encapsulated last Thursday evening
on BBC2’s jaded old Newsnight. Paxman was trying hard to land one on a
clearly uncomfortable ITV director of programmes, David Liddiment,
hectoring him with accusations of network greed, while the BBC
television boss, Alan Yentob, looked on, sanctimonious yet so
humble.
Star of the show was the Independent Television Commission’s director of
programming, Sarah Thane, who pointed out that, while News at Ten might
well be an institution, it was an institution more cherished than
watched.
We’ve always known what the great British viewing public think of News
at Ten. That’s the whole point about this long-running debate. ITV is in
business to deliver (within reason) what the mass market wants and the
ITC didn’t need to conduct endless vox pops to discover that we’re not
obsessed by television news. It’s always been down in black and white in
the BARB audience figures. We have too much news. If the ITC really
wanted to encourage diversity, it would ban ITV from carrying any news
whatsoever.
But the ITC’s bravery this time shouldn’t be discounted. They were
cowards last time around when John ’warm beer and village cricket’ Major
demurred.
This time, the ITC had Gerald Kaufman, the chairman of the culture,
media and sport parliamentary select committee, to contend with. And
they did well to ignore him.
There are some ITC caveats, of course, but ITV now has what it always
wanted: a clear two-hour, post-watershed peaktime stretch between 9pm
and 11pm. It can’t just schedule feature films, nor would (or should) it
want to. The dummy schedule contains current affairs and quality drama
too - and the ITC has now made it clear that ITV must include a news
bulletin in the nearest break to ten o’clock.
The ITV chief executive, Richard Eyre, obviously greeted the ITC
decision as a victory - and it was absolutely vital if he was to have
any chance of meeting his promises to take ITV’s peaktime share of
viewing above 40 per cent once more. He commented: ’The new schedule,
which will begin next year, (will be) an exciting and far-reaching
overhaul of ITV’s primetime.
We now look forward to working with all our programme makers,
particularly ITN, to bring their energy and expertise to bear on a
schedule designed to bring greater diversity and variety to all our
viewers. The conditions the ITC have specified appear reasonable and we
are confident that we can meet them.’
The ITC decision is a recognition by regulators - at long last - that we
are in a new era. That, at least, is the view of Paul Taylor, the
managing director of BMP Optimum. He states: ’How could they have tied
ITV’s hands when there are now a third of UK homes with 24-hour news
services? People switch over or switch off when News at Ten comes on.
The world has changed.
It should obviously be welcomed as long as ITV maintains its commitment
to quality, as well as quantity, of audiences. I think all the talk
about wall-to-wall films was a red herring - that was never really an
option - but this should now reinforce ITV’s commitment to popular and
contemporary quality drama.’
But what about Eyre’s audience share targets? ’The targets are ambitious
and aggressive,’ Taylor acknowledges. ’The expectation has always been
that it would take an increased programme budget to meet them. But being
forced to carry News at Ten was effectively an audience-capping device.
Having that removed is an important step forward. And the short news
bulletin at ten should also be handled carefully. Ideally, that should
replace promotional minutage.
Adding more minutage to the whole break would create a negative audience
reaction and would be counterproductive.’
Last Thursday was also a great victory for the membership of the
Incorporated Society of British Advertisers. The trade body had lobbied
extensively for this outcome and Bob Wootton, ISBA’s director of media
and advertising affairs, admitted that there was quiet satisfaction at
the result. Now he will be ’encouraging’ ITV to go on to meet its
targets: ’They certainly have less of an excuse not to. We have arguably
the best possible team in place at ITV and we will continue to push them
to make their best efforts.
The new schedule will allow for the introduction of really competitive
programming diversity.
’But the News at Ten change will probably not happen until next year, so
in the interim it should be all hands to the pump to ensure that the
schedule performs to the optimum in the medium term.’
And as to how the network will handle the headline news bulletin, ISBA
is keen to advise. For instance, advertisers would take a dim view if
ITV scheduled a break before and after the bulletin plus a slug of promo
airtime - that could add up to an ’intermission’ of more than ten
minutes.
Jim Marshall, the chief executive of MediaVest, agrees wholeheartedly
with the view that ITV shouldn’t sit back and merely breathe a sigh of
relief. He says: ’The network’s peaktime audience problem is not
exclusively down to the scheduling of News at Ten. If they see this as
an instant solution they will fail. Channel 4 comedy and drama, for
instance, has played on ITV scheduling weaknesses caused directly by the
position of News at Ten. But it is important that ITV focuses its
competitiveness against the BBC.
It won’t help anyone if audience gains are made at the expense of other
commercial channels.’
