Here’s ITV’s schedule tonight:
19:00 Emmerdale [Farm] – Trashy daily soap
19:30 Coronation Street – Less trashy nearly-daily soap (Never watched and not about to start)
20:00 Road to Ruin: Tonight – Sir Trev introduces a film he may not have even watched. All about the state of our roads.
20:30 Coronation Street – Episode positioned solely to get BBC1 viewers to turn over after Eastenders.
21:00 Driving Me Crazy – “In the first of three programmes offering celebrities the chance to get something off their chest on the subject of motoring, John Sergeant rails against the 4×4.” I get annoyed about 4x4s. But an hour? At 9pm? Almost certainly done better by John Ware’s recent BBC2 series.
22:00 Teen Boob Jobs: Too Much Too Young – Dear God no. Is this what we’ve come to in 2007? You just know that the audience they’re aiming for is one that wants to ogle teenagers’ breasts.
22:30 ITV News – I really feel sorry for ITN. Newsnight’s the better option here isn’t it?
23:00 Film: Predator – 20 year old film with Arnie.
00:55 Champions League Weekly – ITV is contractually obligated to show this.
01:25 Glitterball – Ripping off our stupid viewers.
I did watch Stephen Fry’s Kingdom on ITV last night, and what became really obvious is the lack of suitable other programmes to trail during the ad breaks. The Bill? The network premiere of Ray? That Shane Ritchie thing later in the week?
I suppose The Last Detective is OK-ish. And there might be a new Miss Marple on Friday – I prefer Joan Hickson to be honest. But ITV still has some real work to do. A non-soap, non-one-off drama series might be an idea.