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Bond and Blethyn lead ITV strategy to dominate peaktime schedules

Rhys Williams
Thursday 18 March 1999 01:02 GMT
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ITV'S APPARENTLY insatiable desire to dominate peak-time viewing into the new millennium was further underlined yesterday with the launch of a pounds 190m spring and summer schedule that features 14 new drama series and the United Kingdom premier of the most recent James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies as the culmination of a complete run of every James Bond film.

The ratings-driven schedule unveiled in London provided the first long- term indication of how the network intends to exploit the audience potential opened up by shifting its main news bulletin - News at Ten - out of peak time to 6.30pm.

For lovers of Seventies children's programmes, the schedule's most important move was to herald the return of two television heroes to tea time. Former Blue Peter presenter John Noakes and Johnny Morris, the face and voice of Animal Magic, have both had their careers revived by ITV. Mr Morris was last seen in Animal Magic more than 20 years ago, while Mr Noakes has been lured from his Spanish retreat to present Mad About Pets.

The pounds 190m that ITV is spending, much of it on peak time, is the most the network has invested in a single schedule. The scale of the spending and scope of the programming will alarm the BBC, which is feeling bruised by the ratings hit it took last week, the first since ITV moved News at Ten.

David Liddiment, ITV's director of programmes, said: "We've got more peak air time to fill and therefore we are having to spend more money. The summer schedules, not just on ITV but all channels, have often looked a little thin in the past. But we will have the most first-run material in a single quarter than there has ever been in the past."

John Thaw will star in The Plastic Man as a plastic surgeon whose skill with the scalpel is not reflected in his handling of his personal life. The Blonde Bombshell, featuring Amanda Redman, charts Diana Dors' life and journey from a wannabe starlet, through two marriages and a failed Hollywood career to her final days as a chat- and game-show stalwart on British television.

Brenda Blethyn and Julie Walters team up in Girls' Night, written by the award-winning Kay Mellor. It tells the story of two sisters-in-law on a dream trip to Las Vegas after one of them wins at bingo and discovers she has a brain tumour. Robson Green, of Soldier, Soldier, also returns to ITV in two drama series.

Television's enduring capacity for anything involving doctors or nurses continues with yet another medical drama series, Always and Everyone starring Martin Shaw and Niamh Cusack.

The schedule also features two programmes will attempt to deflect charges that the network is dumbing down and downgrading factual programming in peak time. Tonight with Trevor McDonald is expected to become ITV's flagship current-affairs programme and will be broadcast weekly at 10 o'clock. In the epic 20 part-series Two Thousand Years Melvyn Bragg will examine the history and influence of Christianity.

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