At the moment it's ITV Play the late night quiz strand on ITV1 and ITV2 that has been cleared as opposed to ITV Play the channel, which is still off air at the time of writing and may not resume for a while yet. But even if all of ITV Play's quizzes and internal systems have been cleared to continue, should it just resume as if nothing has happened?
ITV in general now appears to be at a crucial turning point from a credibility perspective, with Michael Grade recently taking up his position and pledging to make fundamental changes. Mr Grade may be reasonably happy with the basic concept of ITV Play as a channel, but its continuing existence could now hold back any progress being made elsewhere relating to ITV the brand.
Channel 4 wisely resisted the temptation to link its Quiz Call channel with the Channel 4 brand, as well as being fortunate enough to sell off the channel at just the right time. If Michael Grade is to be truly forward-thinking in his general review of ITV's operations then he should consider options that may have been unthinkable even a month ago.
ITV Play is very likely to continue to make money if it resumes broadcasting in its current form, but the potential credibility risk to ITV as a recovering brand - no matter how relatively small - may still be too great to ignore. Just removing the ITV Play channel from Freeview could be another possible option available to ITV.
The controller of ITV Play William van Rest seems pretty confident of his channel's credibility, to quote: "ITV Play has always put a huge premium on responsibility and ensuring our systems are as transparent and accountable as possible". Whether that "huge premium on responsibility" extends to checking for Rawlplugs in ladies' handbags remains to be seen.
