ITV warns it could stop being a PSB

[Brekkie]

There could be a real opportunity here to solve the Scottish Six question though. What if STV were allowed to do their own (inter)national news but use packages and reports from ITN, like local radio stations do with Sky/IRN. An STV News Hour with national, UK and World news, with an opt out from 6.30-6.55 for legacy sub regions of STV and Grampian?

Let's face it - granted they were on digital channels but STV tried the concept of a "Scottish Six" at 7pm on STV2 and BBC Scotland have tried it with The Nine and even factoring into account they were fledgling digital channels there was no evidence from either than the demand was there.

[Humphrey Hacker]

This comes up regularly, bear in mind the licences are due for early renewal next year and IIRC they "threatened" this 10 years ago for the current licences.

The concept of a franchise round 1991 style isn't going to happen. We're not going to go from one major company to 16 smaller ones.

If the licences are due for renewal next year it would make sense to scrap the separate 'breakfast licence', to allow whoever operates the Channel 3 licence for the rest of the day to own it (i.e. ITV & STV). Maybe going further and replacing the multiple regional licences with just 5 licences - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Channel Islands. I dare say something like this might suit ITV Plc, especially if nation licences allowed them to get away with just one England specific news programme a day (and another couple for Wales & NI) instead of having to produce multiple English regional news programmes.

As others have commented this feels more like positioning themselves ahead of licence renewal negotiations, and deterring any tighter regulations. It's safe to say we're extremely unlikely to see That's TV suddenly occupying the Channel 3 slot.

The weak link in the argument is the Channel Islands. I mean no disrespect to anyone from the Islands but from I've seen Channel's news output struggles to cover 15 minutes let alone 30 (for the record and I don't know if this is still true it was Channel Report at 6 followed by Channel Sport at 6.15)

If ITV ever went down this route then they may subsume the Islands into the mainland and have 4 licences and not 5 with the studios at Jersey and Guernsey closed and transferred to Plymouth.

[James Martin]

This comes up regularly, bear in mind the licences are due for early renewal next year and IIRC they "threatened" this 10 years ago for the current licences.

The concept of a franchise round 1991 style isn't going to happen. We're not going to go from one major company to 16 smaller ones.

If the licences are due for renewal next year it would make sense to scrap the separate 'breakfast licence', to allow whoever operates the Channel 3 licence for the rest of the day to own it (i.e. ITV & STV). Maybe going further and replacing the multiple regional licences with just 5 licences - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Channel Islands. I dare say something like this might suit ITV Plc, especially if nation licences allowed them to get away with just one England specific news programme a day (and another couple for Wales & NI) instead of having to produce multiple English regional news programmes.

As others have commented this feels more like positioning themselves ahead of licence renewal negotiations, and deterring any tighter regulations. It's safe to say we're extremely unlikely to see That's TV suddenly occupying the Channel 3 slot.

The weak link in the argument is the Channel Islands. I mean no disrespect to anyone from the Islands but from I've seen Channel's news output struggles to cover 15 minutes let alone 30 (for the record and I don't know if this is still true it was Channel Report at 6 followed by Channel Sport at 6.15)

If ITV ever went down this route then they may subsume the Islands into the mainland and have 4 licences and not 5 with the studios at Jersey and Guernsey closed and transferred to Plymouth.

I must admit I wonder how they managed an hour during the strike! There's been a lot of flack recently for the flipping of all but a handful of the old "second-tier"/"sallie" commercial radio stations, mostly to Greatest Hits Radio - most of them licensed in the New Labour boom years of the late 90's and early 00's. But the truth is, not a lot happens in a lot of these ultra-small TSAs to justify a news service. I've been PD of such a license and worked in programming and news for several more; and back in the day a lot of these licenses were mandated to do extended news and things like that; but not enough happens in the TSA to fill a 2 minute update so how the Hell some of these stations filled 10 minute extended bulletins I'll never know.

[Brekkie]

It comes down to the classic conundrum of value versus cost. I think the ITV Plc of the last decade has realised the value of some PSB obligations actually outweighs the cost, which certainly drove decisions in the noughties. That's been evident as recently as earlier this month with them clearing their schedules for the death of Prince Phillip - they could easily have justified a 90 minute break in coverage for the soaps and thanks to the BBC schedules probably would have got high ratings for them, but actually cancelling them ensured they fell into the same bracket as BBC1. OK, it wasn't rewarded a week later with the funeral coverage but ITV realise the importance that they are a factor at these national moments.

Therefore I think they'd look to keep some kind of regional element initially at least - their initial play would be the channel is moving from 3 to 6 (on Freeview), not that it's going to be a watered down version of what people expect. Things would likely evolve over time, but initially I think the main benefit to ITV would be the additional 2 minutes an hour of advertising they'd be allowed as a non-PSB on the main channel, and not being restricted to 40 minutes of ads in primetime.


As I said before I don't think this would be a good move for ITV or for television in general, but if it did happen it could be the biggest shake up in free to air television since the launch of digital TV if it is managed right - though of course even if ITV could move down the EPG and keep most it's audience in vacating the channel 3 slot they'd be opening that up to a major new competitor for advertising if OFCOM managed it correctly.

[Humphrey Hacker]

If the licences are due for renewal next year it would make sense to scrap the separate 'breakfast licence', to allow whoever operates the Channel 3 licence for the rest of the day to own it (i.e. ITV & STV). Maybe going further and replacing the multiple regional licences with just 5 licences - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Channel Islands. I dare say something like this might suit ITV Plc, especially if nation licences allowed them to get away with just one England specific news programme a day (and another couple for Wales & NI) instead of having to produce multiple English regional news programmes.

As others have commented this feels more like positioning themselves ahead of licence renewal negotiations, and deterring any tighter regulations. It's safe to say we're extremely unlikely to see That's TV suddenly occupying the Channel 3 slot.

The weak link in the argument is the Channel Islands. I mean no disrespect to anyone from the Islands but from I've seen Channel's news output struggles to cover 15 minutes let alone 30 (for the record and I don't know if this is still true it was Channel Report at 6 followed by Channel Sport at 6.15)

If ITV ever went down this route then they may subsume the Islands into the mainland and have 4 licences and not 5 with the studios at Jersey and Guernsey closed and transferred to Plymouth.

I must admit I wonder how they managed an hour during the strike! There's been a lot of flack recently for the flipping of all but a handful of the old "second-tier"/"sallie" commercial radio stations, mostly to Greatest Hits Radio - most of them licensed in the New Labour boom years of the late 90's and early 00's. But the truth is, not a lot happens in a lot of these ultra-small TSAs to justify a news service. I've been PD of such a license and worked in programming and news for several more; and back in the day a lot of these licenses were mandated to do extended news and things like that; but not enough happens in the TSA to fill a 2 minute update so how the Hell some of these stations filled 10 minute extended bulletins I'll never know.

From what I know about Channel TV during the strike their efforts bordered on superhuman. It was the closest the UK's had to community television.

I've had some experience with community radio and the news output has been pretty non existent. I was on the air when news came through that Prince had died and had to think on my feet to weave the news in. Fortunately I was able to fall back on my training but many TSA's must struggle terribly.

[Stanley Matravers]

Maybe going further and replacing the multiple regional licences with just 5 licences - England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Channel Islands.

I doubt that anything like that would happen until/unless the whole Channel 3 network comes under a single ownership (e.g. if ITV plc acquires STV), due to the Border franchise.

Ofcom may well have the power to alter franchise boundaries, but I doubt they have the will to upset the status quo in the current Border Scotland area whilst there's still two different Channel 3 companies.

Reallocation of the territory may not suit either ITV or STV, as long as they remain separate (e.g. ITV losing those viewers and advertising revenue, STV having the onus to report on news stories from additional localities), and Ofcom may have to deal with objections (possibly even legal action?) by either/both companies.

Conversely, I think it most likely that the Border region *would* be disbanded if/when Channel 3 does become fully consolidated. We'd presumably then end up with things like "ITV News Tyne Tees & Cumbria" (catchy name!) and "ITV News Scotland" (Central Belt & South edition) or similar, and nothing transcending the border anymore.

[Spencer]

I came across this article on the subject from Prolific North, which has this interesting version of the ITV logo combining the current layered look and the original colours...



Never seen this before – looks almost as if it was a preliminary design before they settled on the three colour look.

[HarveyB]

The breakfast licence is a legacy thing from 1983, it's probably not going anywhere any time soon while the current licence is around. If its going anywhere it'll probably be from the start of the new licences from 2025 onwards, but I suspect its more complicated than just saying don't broadcast 6-9:25 anymore, as it would be Ofcom withdrawing the option as opposed to the broadcaster making enough of a sin to justify revoking it in the first place.

Would ITV still be able to do GMB (or whatever show they'll call it in 2025) if the breakfast License ended?

[Inspector Sands]

The breakfast licence is a legacy thing from 1983, it's probably not going anywhere any time soon while the current licence is around. If its going anywhere it'll probably be from the start of the new licences from 2025 onwards, but I suspect its more complicated than just saying don't broadcast 6-9:25 anymore, as it would be Ofcom withdrawing the option as opposed to the broadcaster making enough of a sin to justify revoking it in the first place.

Would ITV still be able to do GMB (or whatever show they'll call it in 2025) if the breakfast License ended?

If they ditched the seperate breakfast license then why wouldn't they, it would just be any other period of airtime?

[Neil Jones]

The breakfast licence is a legacy thing from 1983, it's probably not going anywhere any time soon while the current licence is around. If its going anywhere it'll probably be from the start of the new licences from 2025 onwards, but I suspect its more complicated than just saying don't broadcast 6-9:25 anymore, as it would be Ofcom withdrawing the option as opposed to the broadcaster making enough of a sin to justify revoking it in the first place.

Would ITV still be able to do GMB (or whatever show they'll call it in 2025) if the breakfast License ended?

Why not? Its already technically part of ITV to an extent, so its just a legal distinction. Much like Friday 5:15pm changeover between London weekday and London weekend is still a thing but today you wouldn't know about it if you weren't aware of the history.

[Col87]

It would be nice if Ofcom grew some balls and said to ITV fine then off you go. We will just readvertise the channel 3 licenses for England Wales Northern Ireland and Breakfast. You can find a channel slot elsewhere. Be interesting to see what would happen then if ITV would risk going though with it letting a new broadcast open up and then moving further down the EPG.

[Brekkie]

Part of me wants that to happen, but part of me realises the expectation of the likes of NBC, Discovery, BT or Disney for example coming in and becoming a major free to air player is likely to result in the likes of That's TV and Made scraping together their pennies for a rather underwhelming and underfunded service. :oops:

[eyeTV]

It would be nice if Ofcom grew some balls and said to ITV fine then off you go. We will just readvertise the channel 3 licenses for England Wales Northern Ireland and Breakfast. You can find a channel slot elsewhere. Be interesting to see what would happen then if ITV would risk going though with it letting a new broadcast open up and then moving further down the EPG.

They won't as Ofcom already recognise the pressures on existing PSBs and have said that the model is no longer fit for purpose under pressure from global streamers, technology & changes in viewing habits. They are already recommending a new regulatory framework for PSB's and are due to make recommendations to government this summer.

It's all set out here
https://www.smallscreenbigdebate.co.uk/consultation

Ofcom are likely to be receptive to ITV who have set out clearly and reasonably the areas where they consider changes should be made given how things have moved on in 10 years. Whether the proposals that come out will meet ITV's requirements remain to be seen.

[bluecortina2]

It would be nice if Ofcom grew some balls and said to ITV fine then off you go. We will just readvertise the channel 3 licenses for England Wales Northern Ireland and Breakfast. You can find a channel slot elsewhere. Be interesting to see what would happen then if ITV would risk going though with it letting a new broadcast open up and then moving further down the EPG.

If ITV plc with a combined legacy of PSB broadcasting of over 60 years can’t make a financial go of it what makes you think another company could - especially as they would face a commercial competitor (ITV) with no PSB constraints?

[Humphrey Hacker]

It would be nice if Ofcom grew some balls and said to ITV fine then off you go. We will just readvertise the channel 3 licenses for England Wales Northern Ireland and Breakfast. You can find a channel slot elsewhere. Be interesting to see what would happen then if ITV would risk going though with it letting a new broadcast open up and then moving further down the EPG.

If ITV plc with a combined legacy of PSB broadcasting of over 60 years can’t make a financial go of it what makes you think another company could - especially as they would face a commercial competitor (ITV) with no PSB constraints?

In a nutshell...none. But as regards channel slots I can't see that being a major issue for ITV. They could run a huge campaign to tell viewers to either retune their sets or make a new favourite slot on their boxes.