10 Biggest Mistakes ITV Has Ever Made

10 Biggest Mistakes ITV Has Ever Made

Caitlin Johnson

Welcome to WatchMojoUK, and today we’re looking at ITV’s biggest missteps and scandals over the years.

PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE THE VOICE OVER ARTIST VO CARD IN THE INTRO

ITV News at Ten

Though the BBC preceded Independent Television by decades, ITV’s News at Ten, launching in 1967, was the first regularly-scheduled half-hour news bulletin on TV. Interestingly, it was thought that ITV shouldn’t have news programming initially, and that more people would want to just keep watching entertainment shows. But the News at Ten became wildly popular, proving that people DO want hard-hitting journalism in the evening. Then, in 1998, it was axed in favour of shorter bulletins three times a day. The public, however, weren’t happy; after years of back and forth, in 2008, it was officially reinstated with an apology from Michael Grade. Who knew that Brits like serious journalism? Not ITV, apparently.

Piers Morgan

There are those who would say that hiring Piers Morgan in the first place was a mistake, but the ratings on “Good Morning Britain” clearly showed that they were in the minority. Known for his aggressive, confrontational interviews and deeply-held opinions, Morgan is a love-him-or-hate-him broadcaster. But in 2020, after yet another rant about the Duchess of Sussex, he stormed off-set. He did return to finish the programme, but it was to be his last; he quit “GMB”. ITV probably did everything it could to keep him on board, but still, losing Morgan has been a clear blow to the broadcaster. Daytime ratings have been struggling ever since despite stalwart presenter Susanna Reid holding down the fort, joined by Richard Madeley being inflammatory instead.

Bringing Back “Big Brother”

This is a gamble that seems to have paid off so far, but does anybody really want it? “Big Brother” was so controversial that after a decade, Channel 4 – known for its outrageous programming – cancelled it, unable to handle the heat. Channel 5 immediately picked it up until they, too, decided to wrap both “Big Brother” and the celebrity version. After five years, it looked like we might have put this era of reality TV behind us, until ITV decided to revive it. It’s well-known that the network is currently struggling for ratings, making swinging cuts and apparently counting on big shows like “Big Brother” to reverse its fortunes. But we’d prefer it to be off our screens for good.

“The X Factor” Voting Scandal

Like “Big Brother”, “The X Factor” has always been controversial. Continuing to broadcast it for so long is arguably a mistake in and of itself, especially when it became clear how lax the aftercare was when vulnerable members of the public were roundly humiliated in the audition stage. But one scandal is more prominently remembered than others, when “technical issues” interfered with the public vote. This culminated in the Leon vs Rhydian controversy, with many believing that Rhydian should have won and that their votes weren’t counted. Well, the vote actually hadn’t been manipulated for Leon and Rhydian, but Ofcom did rule that in the third series ITV had overcharged viewers £200,000 for votes made after the phone lines closed.

Believing Phillip Schofield

After years of rumours and internal investigations, it turned out that yes, Phillip Schofield HAD been up to no good. But it remains a mystery why ITV bosses and producers weren’t able to uncover this before he fessed up in “The Sun”. They eventually sacked him for his trouble – at least, according to Schofe; they claim that he resigned – but, if Eamonn Holmes is to be believed, the company knew and was sending cars to ferry Schofield’s young lover around. Schofield has categorically denied this and Holmes clearly had an axe to grind after also being sacked from ITV, but it’s still perplexing. Even Holly Willoughby had no idea, and has disavowed her former co-star.

The End of Regional Franchises

In the early days of Independent Television, the network consisted of half a dozen regional networks, including Thames Television and Granada. They didn’t just distribute the national ITV fare, though, but also commissioned their own programmes just for those regions. But across the board, regional programming has been being slowly reduced for years. The late 80s saw the demise of the regional idents, a sign of worse things to come. The following decade saw chaos for ITV’s regional franchises, and by the mid-2000s, the franchises were all but abolished. Today, we only have ITV and one final regional group, STV for the Scottish viewers.

ITV Play

The aforementioned “X Factor” voting issues were part of the wider premium-rate phone-in scandal, but though every broadcaster was fined over this, one channel was axed completely: the fledgling quiz channel ITV Play. It was on our screens for only a year, but got in frequent hot water around the high costs of participating, at 75p a call even if your call never connected. Ofcom did an investigation and found that the answers to the deceptively easy quizzes were, quote, “too obscure”, rigging the game so that no reasonable person could ever actually guess the correct answer. They did this, supposedly, just because they didn’t want to give the money away.

Animal Cruelty

The early 2000s were a different time, when you could just eat live animals and nobody would bat an eye as long as those animals were insects or pests. On the ninth series of “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!”, Gino D’Acampo and Stuart Manning led the charge to kill, cook, and eat a rat, with ITV getting fined by the Australian RSPCA for not intervening. Years later, and viewers’ stomachs turned watching Ferne McCann eat a live spider. Despite complaints, this incident didn’t lead to any action from Ofcom. The RSPCA here has also complained, and the show has since stopped asking celebs to eat live critters, but they still use them in trials.

“Love Island” Aftercare

Since 2015, the summer has been ruled by “Love Island”, which immediately became one of the biggest shows in ITV history. However, between 2018 and 2020 four people connected to the show took their own lives: former contestants Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon; Gradon’s boyfriend Aaron Armstrong; and original host Caroline Flack. Social media harassment was cited as a concern, with people saying that ITV hadn’t taken the necessary steps to protect its contestants after they skyrocketed to fame. Aftercare standards were improved and there have been no tragic deaths since, but many believe that not cancelling “Love Island” has, and continues to be, a mistake on ITV’s part.

Jeremy Kyle

Who could have known that something like this was going to happen on “The Jeremy Kyle Show”? Well, all the families of the people to whom it had happened already. The confrontational talkshow was finally cancelled by ITV, after years of outrage, after the death of a guest, Steve Dymond, when he failed an unreliable lie detector test. But a Channel 4 investigation later revealed that other people had also lost loved ones after being tormented on the programme. An inquest found that Kyle had no responsibility for Dymond’s death, but the fact that it took ITV so long to do anything about the show remains an outrage. Cancelling it doesn’t absolve them.

Let us know in the comments what you think the worst ITV errors have been.