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What's the point of ITV?
If the worst should happen, and ITV were dismantled or taken over by an overseas company with less of an obligation to create British programmes, it would leave a huge hole. That really is thinking the unthinkable.
Would it? Frankly I'm not sure I'd notice. The last thing I watched on ITV was Law And Order UK which they stopped showing half way through the series without any announcement as to when or whether the rest will appear. (You might think it would be a better fit on C5 anyway given that's where the US versions show.) I can't remember what would have been the previous thing, and I mostly watch C5 and (to a lesser extent) the BBC.
It would of course help if they didn't, apparently uniquely among TV stations, try to stop you finding out what they were showing.
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(Anonymous) 2009-09-14 10:30 am (UTC)(link)Also, more worryingly, as a fair chunk of Channel 4's funding comes from ITV (as part of ITV's public-service obligation), it's possible that ITV's collapse might well hole it below the waterline. No more Peep Show, Skins, anything like Red Riding, no more Film4, not to mention the up-and-coming-talent strands that 4 does from time to time.
S.
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Well, yes, the point is more that the article implies ITV would need a fair amount of internal reform (e.g. the accounting thing) to be able to make good use of extra income, and if they can't or won't do that then who's going to want to give them the money?
As for Channel 4...
I can't remember the last time I watched anything on 4, either. Slightly odd since I'm sure I remember finding it being the most consistently interesting channel (but that was probably 15-20 years ago now; my TV watching fell sharply in hours/week when I went to university and only really recovered at all relatively recently).
Film Four (as in the movie making, not the channel), now that I can see would be worth keeping, except I see it's been severely cut back anyway.
(Of course funding channel 4 wouldn't be an argument for subsidizing ITV so much as an argument for subsidizing channel 4 directly. But fixing ITV might imply things other than a direct subsidy, of course - indeed I hope it would; two publicly funded broadcasters would seem like a bit of an extravagance. Although I suppose it might be worth it for the outrage from the Murdoch clan.)
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(Anonymous) 2009-09-14 10:59 am (UTC)(link)Skins surprised me by being absolutely, utterly, brilliant. It annoys because it is everything that's wrong with the modern world, and morally of course it appalls me, but it's just amazingly well-constructed.
(I watch a lot more on Channel 4 than I've mentioned but mostly imports, and this is about programme-making not buying-in. But 4 have bought Generation Kill so I eagerly await that).
S.