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of ITV daytime, are now on C4 – everyday in daytime. When I signed Graham Norton to Channel 4, the BBC (both 1 and 2) as well as ITV all wanted the same talented individual and the same show.
On Sunday nights this year, a ‘return’ of Auf Wiedersehen Pet – once a classic ITV show of 12 years ago now on the BBC, was head to head with the ‘return’ of The Forsyte Saga – a classic BBC show of 35 years ago. What next, Jewel in the Crown II on BBC1 and Edge of Darkness - the pre- quel on ITV?
It’s perfectly adequate but it’s not very exciting. It is lowering people’s expectations. How often do we hear (and say) “oh
there’s nothing on – it’s all the same”. Holby City, London’s Burning, Mersey Beat, The Bill, Casualty, Heartbeat, Coronation Street and EastEnders. They are all fine in their own way but they’re pretty indistinguishable from each other. A combined budget of £2 billion pounds and BBC 1 and ITV give you this.
So you look to the newest Channel – C5 and your expecta- tions should be ‘well, maybe something’s different out there’. If we can use this change in expec- tation, this new hope and demand for a straight-talking, smart, fun to watch and reward- ing set of programmes, while the other terrestrials are so similar, then we have a real chance of adding
something to the TV audience. Being the smallest channel can have its advantages, the main one being that we have
less to lose by trying new things. Once the preserve of C4, now so obviously in the mainstream, new and fresh should start to domi- nate the schedules of C5.
If you can identify and man- age people’s expectations, then you are at once engaged in the dialectic and thus able to satisfy both what people expect and want from Channel 5.
Kevin Lygo will be delivering the Annual BAFTA Lecture on October 2
“I’m no longer looked at as though I have something nasty on my shoe when I tell people I work for C5”
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