ITV gets into costume drama

RHYS WILLIAMS

Media Correspondent

ITV yesterday moved in on the BBC's high ground of costume drama by announcing two major classical adaptations for next year.

Launching a pounds 583m peak-time package for 1996, Marcus Plantin, ITV's network director, said the channel would carry small screen versions of Jane Austen's Emma and Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. Both will be adapted by Andrew Davies, the man responsible for Pride and Prejudice, currently on BBC1, and for Michael Dobbs's House of Cards.

Mr Plantin said he was meeting "head on the competitive pressure of the multi-channel environment".

Other highlights for next year include a fourth weekly episode of Coronation Street and the moving forward of World In Action, which will be screened half an hour earlier at 8pm - both signs of increasingly intense mid-peak competition.

News At Ten will remain in its current slot, but late-evening fare will be promoted more aggressively with a pounds 10m package of youth, light-entertainment and sex-based programmes, including quiz and dating games.