ITV & Channel 5 research

ITV

• The UK's leading commercial broadcaster (i.e. mainstream).
• "ITV is the home of high quality, popular television from the biggest entertainment events, to original drama, soaps, sport, factual series and independent news, both national, and regional."
• "ITV is the home of mainstream drama. We make series, serials and single films for broad, mainstream audiences, regularly achieving ratings above 6m. Our output aims to have variety and depth."
• "Our two soaps Coronation Street and Emmerdale provide the bedrock of our weekday schedule. These long-running dramas have been entertaining the nation for decades and are at the heart of the national conversation on a daily basis."
• "We are looking for clear ideas which can deliver the highest quality popular mainstream drama to the largest audience. No subject is off-limits - we can rise to celebratory, hilarious highs or plunge to very dark areas of human behaviour. But we will always look for mainstream appeal and an accessible way in for our audience."
• "We can take our audience to places they have never been as long as we don’t alienate them. An ITV drama is never cynical and is always entertaining, and even in the darkest stories we seek the hope of redemption. We don’t do black comedy or satire, and we can’t be bleak."
• Primarily funded by advertising revenue.
• "ITV, as an integrated producer broadcaster, creates, owns and distributes high-quality content on multiple platforms globally."
• "ITV2 is ITV's entertainment channel for young people, with a range of shows including original scripted comedies and panel shows, American acquisitions, and movies."
• "ITV3 is a home for popular classic drama series from ITV, alongside a selection of choice factual and entertainment programmes."
• "ITV4 is great escapism with a mixture of live sport, iconic movies, US acquired shows and cult classics."
• "CITV is the home for ITV's younger viewers. A mix of animated and live action series for school aged children, including home grown commissions and presentation items created by kids themselves."
• "ITV Encore has a schedule dedicated to drama, featuring the best of contemporary British drama series from ITV." (This channel no longer exists).
• "ITVBe is dedicated to lifestyle and entertainment programming from the UK and US, featuring real lives, and real people."

Channel 5

• "I can tell you now that we DON’T want programmes that are tricksy or derivative – or that are over formatted. And we are not crazy about ‘experts’ – I think there are probably enough out there for now."
• "What we DO want are programmes that are engaging, intelligent, well made and have a relevance to the viewer."
• "We particularly like factual shows – Specialist Factual, Documentaries and Factual Entertainment. These can be poppy, tabloid type shows or serious pieces, there’s room for all tones and textures. But they need to have a good, grabby title. We are not really in the market for Comedy or Drama at the moment but that will hopefully change moving forward. We are also hoping to commission more Features and Lifestyle further down the line but it’s hard to get those kind of shows away at the moment."

Thoughts

As I would like to make a fictional TV show, it will probably be for ITV as Channel 5 specialises in factual programmes. One additional genre which I thought of while doing research was the murder mystery/'who dunnit' genre (e.g. Midsomer murders) which is a sub-genre of crime. The only problem with this may be that most of these shows are set in the past, which would be hard to recreate on a low budget, although I could adapt this trope. I found it particularly interesting that ITV say that their drama is never cynical and is always entertaining and hopeful, which I will have to make sure to incorporate into my show, whatever it may be.