ITV gets 50th-birthday blues
Exex defend web's future while industryites mourn its past
Should this once undisputed force across many genres of entertainment and TV journalism hold a birthday party or conduct a wake?
At the end of August John Birt, one of the countries most influential web heads, and a former ITV program topper, described ITV as a "tragedy."
He believes the broadcaster has failed to retain and build on its public service past that included edgy drama, pioneering arts shows and a nightly newscast envied by the BBC.
Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival he said: "We are gradually waving goodbye to ITV without anyone saying anything about it at all."
The former BBC director general, who has reinvented himself as a "blue skies" thinker for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, added: "What has happened to ITV over the last 20 years has been a tragedy. It did not exploit the brand and has paid a heavy price for it."
Birt is not alone in comparing ITV present to ITV past and finding it wanting.
The skeptics claim the channel, created by the late, great British showbiz entrepreneurs, Lew Grade and brothers Cecil and Sidney Bernstein, no longer exerts any significant cultural influence in the U.K.
The doom merchants insist ITV's recent strong financial performance has been achieved only by destructive cost cuts, ignoring the fact that a recent cut in license fees was achieved thanks to skillful lobbying by CEO Charles Allen. Profits are expected to surge 52% year on year when figures are announced later this month.
A recent list of ITV's 50 greatest shows did not include a single program commissioned in the past three years.
That ITV compiled the list itself speaks volumes.
But is it fair to compare today's ITV, that operates in a fast-evolving multi-channel digital market, to a time when the BBC was the only competitor on the block?
The pubcaster was profoundly affected by the arrival of a commercial competitor back in 1955 and was forced to raise its game.
Simon Shaps, head of ITV's content arm, Granada, thinks too little emphasis is placed on the web's achievements such as maintaining a 29% primetime audience share and its recent production successes in the U.S. and Australia.
"Hit Me Baby One More Time" has played on NBC, while "Hell's Kitchen" and "Nanny 911" went out on Fox, and "Dancing With the Stars" (licensed to Granada by the BBC) is No. 1 in Australia and was a hit for ABC in the U.S.
"We are hugely optimistic and positive on our 50th birthday," he says. "Add in our family of channels (ITV4 is set to bow Nov. 1) and you'll find that year-on-year our overall share has held up remarkably well.
"Internationally we are seeing real returns. For the first time in our history we've got returning shows on the U.S. networks and we have the top-rated show in Australia."
Is such optimism well placed? While ITV1's primetime perf continues to outgun all rivals, including BBC1, overall share figures are more worrying.
In the first half of the year ITV1's ratings declined faster than any other U.K. terrestrial -- down 6.5% to 21.8%.
High-profile flops like "Celebrity Wrestling" and "Celebrity Stitch-Up" were embarrassing for the web, especially as main rival, BBC1, scored with the "Doctor Who" revival.
Comedy continues to be a black hole for ITV1, as its program honcho Nigel Pickard admitted in June when he said: "The biggest joke about ITV's comedy is that there isn't any."
On the other hand, the critically blasted "Celebrity Love Island" finally did well and helped dent Channel 4's dominance of summer viewing via six weeks of "Big Brother."
And drama, like "Life Begins" and "Doc Martin," pulls in auds despite fears by producers that the end of the traditional competition between the separate ITV companies like LWT and Granada (ITV merged last year) would hamper creative endeavor.
What of the future? It is only in the past 18 months that a takeover by an American conglom has been possible, following relaxation of ownership rules.
Speculation that a Viacom or Time Warner might pounce on a network whose most famous show, "Coronation Street," is a resolutely English blue-collar soap that continues to please viewers and critics, persists.
But at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Anthony Fry, head of U.K. investment banking at Lehman Bros., said a takeover was unlikely because "the numbers just don't add up."
Should Fry prove incorrect and a bid emerge to boost ITV's stock prices, the web's owners would have something to really celebrate.
