Battle for TV ratings hots up

Matt Wells, media correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday October 19 2000 09.49 BST

BBC1 and ITV tore up the television schedules yesterday as the ratings battle between the two broadcasters intensified.

The BBC is shifting its ailing drama Hope and Glory to Sundays, while ITV continues to shore up its schedule with careful placing of its popular game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Observers say the BBC and ITV are involved in a battle that neither can afford to lose - but both channels appear to be risking the wrath of viewers who have little idea where their favourite shows will turn up next.

"We are in a competitive and ruthless scheduling environment," said the BBC's head of scheduling, Adam MacDonald.

The ratings war follows the BBC's decision to switch its evening news from 9pm to 10pm. The chairman of the BBC governors, Sir Christopher Bland, defended the move last night after hints from ministers that the corporation would be placed under independent regulators: "It is a demonstration of the independence of the governors that, despite that threat, we still took what we believe to be the right decision."

But Sir Robin Biggam, chairman of the independent television commission, which recently allowed ITV to move its 11pm news back to 10pm on three days a week, said the BBC had gone "beyond the boundary of fair competition".

As the war of words waged last night, both broadcasters continue to employ surreptitious tactics that are more common in the United States: the latest weapon was deployed on Tuesday night, the second day of the new schedule, when ITV screened a 10-minute news special from ITN at 9pm about the Hatfield train crash.

ITV's previous unscheduled mid-evening bulletins have been fronted by the Nightly News presenter, Dermot Murnaghan, but the crash special was introduced by Sir Trevor McDonald, who is also expected to be named soon as the anchorman for the network's revived News at 10.

From the beginning of November, BBC1 is moving its poorly performing Lenny Henry vehicle, Hope and Glory, from Thursday to Sunday.

After being absent for a fortnight, the ailing hospital series Holby City returns on Thursdays - but an hour later than usual to avoid taking a hammering from Millionaire. It will run head-to-head with ITV's popular new series, Fat Friends.

The BBC is also planning to air several editions of its hit daytime quiz show, The Weakest Link, in peak time. Mr MacDonald said: "We haven't changed our scheduling policy - it's not as if we're doing anything different from what we've always done."

Figures released yesterday showed that ITV's news special drew 8.5m viewers on Tuesday, far more than used to watch the BBC Nine O'Clock News. It was, however, boosted by its position between The Bill and A Touch of Frost.

BBC1's premiere of the sci-fi comedy blockbuster Men in Black drew an average audience of 9.8m on Tuesday, against 7.5m for Frost. The BBC's new Ten O'Clock News continued to build its audience with 6.1m, almost a million up on the average for the old 9pm news. Provisional figures also showed the BBC dominated the 6.30pm to 10.30pm peak time period with 37.5% of viewers against ITV's 33.4%.

As the two principal networks slug it out, BBC2, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are all being squeezed.

The fight for viewers:

Junction management

Often used by ITV, which on Monday brought forward the ad break that was due to follow Who Wants to be a Millionaire? into the programme itself, meaning the show over-ran by four minutes.

Result: viewers were transported straight into the Frank Skinner Show without a break, and those who turned to BBC news had missed the 10pm headlines.

For its part, the BBC started One Foot in the Grave at 8.58pm, hooking in viewers before they had a chance to switch over.

End credit promotions

In its simplest form, a continuity announcer whets viewers' appetite with "next on BBC1..." as the credits roll. And for two years, Chris Tarrant has closed Millionaire with a mention for the subsequent ITV show.

But the marketeers are getting more sophisticated: both BBC and ITV have begun to incorporate fully -produced promotional films into the end credits of big shows such as EastEnders and Coronation Street.

Stunt scheduling

Millionaire is described by BBC executives as an "exocet missile" - it destroys everything in sight.

But the BBC has begun to hit back: in a fortnight, it will screen two half-hour editions of EastEnders on Tuesday, "hammocked" around a special peaktime edition of the hit Anne Robinson daytime game show, The Weakest Link. On Thursday, it screens an hour-long EastEnders special to mark the departure of Frank Butcher from Albert Square. The new series of Casualty opened with a two-part special last weekend, over Saturday and Sunday.