Tonight ITV3 launches. Up until now, it was only going to be on Freeview and cable, since Sky are holding up new channel launches due to a pending reorganisation. An email alert from Broadcast magazine tells me that ITV have negotiated a buyout of GSB – the joint venture between Granada (as was) and Sky, that brought us such great channels as (Granada) Plus and (Granada) Men & Motors. OK, Plus isn’t that bad.
Anyway, the result is that ITV3 gets to launch on Sky tonight as well.
Now, I’m not sure why it is that ITV3 is launching with a previously unseen episode of Rebus, since as far as I’m aware, this is a series that hasn’t been made for a while. Every so often, you hear about drama series that ITV had commissioned and then failed to air, so maybe ITV3 will be an outlet for some of these.
One way or another, it should shift a few Freeview boxes, with repeats of Morse, Frost and Foyle. And there are a few imports to bulk out a full day – a day that starts with Peak Practice and Millionaire at breakfast.
Original programming will unsurprisingly be limited. Instead, we’ll get same night/week repeats of popular dramas like The Bill and Rosemary & Thyme, and some behind the scenes stuff that’ll no doubt feature on a few DVDs.
The one thing they could be doing better is buying a few imports that are going to last more than a handful of episodes. I’ve watched Karen Sisco, the short lived drama from ABC last year that depicts the further adventures of the Jennifer Lopez’s character from Out of Sight, and it’s excellent and deserves a showing. But it got canned. CBS series, Hack, did better and lasted a couple of seasons (incidentally, I’ll allow a US series to have a “season” since they tend to last for twenty plus weeks, but in the UK, it should be a “series”, if not a “serial”!). Otherwise it’s older stuff that they sell by the yard like LA Law and The Practice.
UPDATE: The downside of this is that because ITV3 was desperate to go on Sky, it’s taken the place of Plus, which is a shame. Where else are you likely to be able to see old episodes of The Professionals or The Sweeney? Great picture on their website to illustrate Plus’ closure…