United Kingdom

[GB] ITC assesses independent television

IRIS 1996-5:1/15

David Goldberg

deeJgee Research/Consultancy

The Independent Television Commission has just published its 1995 Performance Review of the ITV companies. This is an annual exercise. The report deals with three topics; the overall quality assessment of the ITV schedules; economic behaviour of the companies; and the performance of Channel 4. As regards the overall picture, the Commission finds that ITV has lost the balance between entertainment shows (in particular, as regards real-life and fictional crime programmes) and other genres, such as documentary and arts programmes. The Commission is concerned that the distinctive foundation of the network - the regionalisation of companies - was being jeapordised by mergers and co-production deals. Finally, Channel 4 was criticised for over-reliance on American imports and repeats.