ITV have announced a development initiative being piloted in the nations and regions – Amplify: The Regions.
The aim of the pilot is to further strengthen and accelerate ITV’s relationships with the regional independent production community. Independent production companies based wholly in the regions (in each of the UK’s nations), and not part of a larger corporate group, are encouraged to apply.
Five companies will then be chosen who will each be matched with a genre Commissioner at ITV, receive a brief and then take part in a pitch. As part of the initiative, each chosen company will be given £5,000 to develop any potential ideas. If the ideas are greenlit, the next step will be to go through the standard ITV commissioning process. If ideas are not right for ITV then the production companies are free to pitch their ideas to others.
Kevin Lygo, Managing Director, Media & Entertainment ITV:
“For both linear and ITVX, ideas can and absolutely do often come from the nations and regions. ITV wants ideas from the regions, about the regions and produced by the regions in the regions. Which is why we’re excited today to be launching a brand new development initiative specifically for regional indies – Amplify: The Regions.”
ITV launched as a regional service with networked programming slots in September 1955. It remained in this format until the late 1990s when, by this point, most local operations were owned by either Granada Broadcasting or Carlton International. In 2003 a single ITV1 launched with only regional news and political programming on a local level surviving. This new venture is not about providing any local flavour to the network offering, but will offer regional production companies to pitch for network slots on ITV or for streaming on ITVX.
ITV note ‘as the biggest commercial PSB, for linear ITV wants the best and most unmissable, scalable ideas for a mass market audience. For ITVX, the team wants to continue to attract lighter, harder to reach audiences to premieres and then get users to stay on the platform to watch other things.’
ITV Spokesperson:
“Why are the regions important to ITV? Regional commissions provide the opportunity to inclusively reflect the society within which we all live. They provide diversity of talent, both on and off screen; diversity of ideas; plus diversity of voice, opinions and experiences.
“At ITV, the Regions have always been hugely important – not least in Manchester with the Granada legacy and over 450 staff producing the UK’s biggest soap, Coronation Street. And not forgetting ITV produces news in 18 regions, unlike any other commercial broadcaster.”
ITV spends more on programme making (including regional news) outside of London than Channel 4 and Channel 5 combined. In 2022 – 44% of ITV1 hours and 54% of ITV1 spend was OOL (quotas are 35% for hours and spend). Currently STV – operating two services in Scotland (STV Central and STV North) – is the last sole survivor of the old local structure to exist outside of ITVplc.
