Bragg tells politicians to stop 'penalising' ITV

Lord Bragg is right when he claims that "ITV took its eye off the ball in the 90s" - indeed much can be blamed on the failed ONdigital/ITV Digital project, since 'ITV' at the time (or Granada and Carlton to be precise) was too preoccupied with trying to compete with BSkyB. This caused politicians to view both Carlton and Granada as private companies as opposed to franchise holders with public service commitments.

But Lord Bragg's view is perhaps clouded with loyality when he states that "You know if you want to identify the 645 people who don't [watch ITV], go down the road to the Palace of Westminster. They hear about it, they complain about it, but most of them don't watch it". ITV may still have viewers but many people find that ITV has less and less to offer them personally - and that is a real cause for concern.

Take Saturday nights for example. ITV1's Celebrity Wrestling has just been pulled because it was being slaughtered in the ratings by BBC One's Doctor Who, and this holds a clue as to what has gone so badly wrong. Although Doctor Who may be effectively a resurrection of an old idea, it shows that many viewers prefer well produced creative drama as opposed to cheap formulaic "trash television".

It may be harder to produce quality drama that appeals to a wide age range as opposed to shoving Z-list celebs against each other in combat, but ITV desperately needs to move beyond soaps/Millionaire and cheap filler offerings if it is to recover from its tarnished image.