The Stage

Sport’s loss is drama’s gain on ITV

Published Tuesday 6 July 2004 at 11:35 by Joanna Taylor

ITV1’s drama and entertainment departments will receive an extra £5 million from the money saved after the channel lost Saturday night football highlights to the BBC.

The network is expected to pocket approximately £35 million from its cutdown on sports costs in 2005 - a significant proportion of which came from the end of the Premiership highlights.

£5 million of that cash is expected to contribute to a raft of new drama commissions, including Martin Clunes series Doc Martin, Tom Brown’s School Days, Uncle Adolf and a new, as yet unnamed firefighting drama from Granada.

ITV director of programmes Nigel Pickard will back up the investment with a marketing campaign and extra money will also be put into improving off-peak ratings. He will also launch ITV World, which will provide interactive access to all ITV content on a single page and ITV Sport will be given a new presentation.

Nick Elliott, ITV1 head of drama, said: “Yes, the end of The Premiership will mean more money for the drama and entertainment departments and I think that is a great thing because the football highlights are boring anyway and not at all what they used to be. It is much better to spend the money on drama.”

ITV1 lost the football rights to the BBC in August last year but the broadcaster is understood to have effectively allowed the BBC to win by putting in a “loser’s bid” after The Premiership attracted disappointing and unpredictable ratings for the network.