With Charles Allen set to leave ITV and giving the MacTaggart lecture tonight, we thought it would be fun to look at what ITV looked like when he took the helm at Granada exactly ten years ago....
As Charles Allen prepared for his valedictory lecture at the Edinburgh TV festival tonight he probably thought it would be best to focus on future challenges rather than dwell on the past glories of ITV so I doubt he bothered fishing out ancient back issues of the Radio Times, writes Chris Shaw.
But if he had, say, casually leafed through the ITV schedules and the ratings from this week exactly 10 years ago he might have been suffused with a warm nostalgic glow and astonishment at the just how far things have changed since he took the helm at Granada in 1996.
Preparing for the post McTaggart interview tomorrow morning (the PMT as its lovingly known) when Mr Allen will be quizzed by former ITV baron Stuart Prebble we thought it would be fun to do a ten years on comparison based on a scientific analysis of the Radio Times from the TV festival week a decade ago.
On first glance nothing much has changed. Polly Toynbee is moaning about sensationalist plotlines on TV soaps, Alan Hansen is moaning about footballer's astronomical wages and Sooty has just sold his merchandising rights for 1.4 million pounds.
On closer examination though the changes become clearer.
No X Factor, no Love Island, no celebrity golf tournaments. Weekend higlights back then included Mr Bean, Derek Jacobi as the sleuthing 12th century monk Cadfael, and the movie premiere of Teen Agent.
On weekdays the difference is more pronounced. Clive James Postcard from Hong Kong is the showcase programme at 9 and there's a new George Cole sitcom My Good Friend launching on tuesday night.
Coronation Street is on 3 times a week not 5, The Bill is only half an hour, Des O'Connor presents Take Your Pick, Freddie Starr has his own sketch show in prime time and even Tommy Cooper gets an outing. The News on ITV is at 10.
For the really, really dramatic changes though you need too look at the ratings. The week's top ITV show is still Corrie but that's where the paralells end. Coronation street on 28th August 1996 (Des has difficulty adjusting to his new living arrangements) got 15.5 million viewers and. 71% share of all viewing ! On wednesday night this week Corrie got 9.1 million viewers and a 45 percent shares.
The News at Ten averaged over 6 million a night in the last week of August 1996. So far in 2006 the ITV news at 10.30 has averaged about 2.5 million a night.
Back then Freddie Starr's show attracted 9 million viewers and even Clive James's travelogue got 7.7 million mainly upmarket viewers.
Even in 1996 some people could see the dramatic decline in ITV's rating dominance clearly coming.
In an article headlined The TV revolution I noticed this prophetic paragraph from the BBC's veteran media correspondent Torin Douglas. "The BBC and BSkyB are developing digital channels; ITV and Channel 4 are more cautious, but with rapidly increasing choice for viewers the mainstream channels will have to fight harder than ever for ratings ".
Understatement of the decade perhaps ?
Chris Shaw is senior programme controller for Channel 5 and is producer of the Post MacTaggart Q&A on Saturday morning
