ITV3 and ITV Kids. Have they lost their minds?
Everyone else was concentrating on costs savings and job cuts. Even the Media Guardian barely mentioned it. Thankfully the Independent took the bull by the horns and sniffed out something interesting. Charles Allen, head of Granada, wants to launch more channels.
Yep, Granada (who launched and indeed closed down Shop!, Granada Breeze, Wellbeing, Granada Talk TV, the delightfully named Granada Good Life and of course G-Wizz.net) can't wait to get it together with Carlton (who launched and indeed closed down The Carlton Food Network (later Taste CFN), Carlton Cinema, Carlton Kids and Carlton Select) so that they can launch... wait for it... ITV3 and ITV Kids.
With a record like that, they should be in good stead. And of course, that's only half the Carlton and Granada success story. Their record on joint ventures was even better, managing to destroy ITV Digital, ITV Sport Channel and a whole raft of pay-per-view channels run in conjunction with SDN.
What hope is there for ITV3 - a channel which will apparently do more drama and more 'high-brow' programming (endless loops of the South Bank show anyone) then? And ITV Kids? And are they really thinking about an ITV1+1 like the Indie suggests? And when will they be broadcast? And where? Will they even be free to air?
And how long before they get bored of these new ventures taking up all their money and close them down like they've done with everything else bar Men and Motors and Plus? Lets face it, they've hardly got it right so far - they've even made a hash of their core business of ITV1. In fact the only venture that has so far worked has been ITV2 which, incidently, isn't directly run by either Carlton or Granada (which may explain something).
Oh no. Cos this time it will be different. According to the Indie
"The new services rely on repackaging existing ITV content and promoting the new channels from the mass-market ITV1 station."
Will ITV's last viewer, please turn out the light on the way out.
