STV defends dropping ITV dramas

STV, the ITV franchise-holder in Scotland, has defended its controversial decision to opt out of showing some of the ITV1 network's biggest drama commissions.

STV faced renewed criticism this week after Scottish viewers missed out on seeing Agatha Christie's Marple on Sunday, because it chose to screen a repeat of the surfing movie Blue Crush instead.

The decision backfired, with a mere 112,000 viewers, just 5.9% of the Scottish audience, tuning in to Blue Crush, making it the least watched programme on the five terrestrial channels in Scotland at that time.

Across the UK on ITV1, 21% of the audience watched Marple. The Scottish Sun asked: "Have STV lost their Marples?"

Bobby Hain, STV's director of broadcast services and regulatory affairs, defended the company's money-saving strategy of opting out of some of the ITV1 network's most high-profile programming and filling the schedules with films, repeats and imports.

"Our programme strategy is to create space in the schedule for material that we are making ourselves, for original Scottish content and for alternative acquisitions," said Hain.

"We want to grow our own production base and grow our audience in Scotland, and we are freeing up some funds from our network contribution to invest in other content."

The STV chief executive, Rob Woodward – who was brought in to lead the company following a shareholder coup in February 2007 – has put Scottish programming at the heart of his vision to revive the broadcaster and more of this is expected to come through in the longer term.

The Scottish broadcaster's decision to ditch many ITV plc-produced dramas also follows a long-running dispute between the two companies over what STV pays for this programming.

STV's focus on Scottish interest programming has yielded some successes such as the recent documentary Scotland Goes to War, and Hain pointed to future highlights including an aerial travelogue, Scotland Revealed, and a season searching for the greatest ever Scot, culminating on St Andrew's Day.

But the shift in peak-time strategy has been at the expense of some of the ITV network's most successful shows.

Earlier this year STV decided against screening Lewis and Kingdom, popular ITV1 dramas with very English settings.

It has since passed on many of the dramas at the heart of ITV's autumn schedule such as Blue Murder, Doc Martin and the revamped version of The Bill.

Earlier this week, STV aired the American remake of Cracker, Fitz, instead of The Fixer. One of the rare network dramas it has taken is Murderland, because it is set in Scotland and features the Scottish actor Robbie Coltrane.

STV had not always lost out when it had passed up the chance to screen new ITV drama, Hain said: the seven-year-old Daniela Nardini drama Sirens recently did better in Scotland than Wuthering Heights had across the rest of the UK.

However, STV does have a short-term problem, with the decline in its audience share accelerating this year.

Share has fallen to 16.9% for the first 34 weeks of 2009, down from 19.1% over the same period last year and taking it below ITV's share, which fell from 18.3% to 17.3%.

In peak time, STV is just ahead of ITV but its share has fallen more steeply, down from 25.2% to 22.8%, compared with ITV's decline from 23.7% to 22.7%.

STV is free to choose which programmes it takes from the ITV network – owned by all the Channel 3 franchise holders but now dominated by ITV plc.

Hain said STV remained "very committed" to the network, from which it still draws more than 90% of its programming.

However, the company's stance has annoyed ITV. At ITV's interim results last month, the company's executive chairman, Michael Grade, seemed exasperated that STV had decided to go without ITV-commissioned shows.

"It's a mystery to me what they've got that's better," he said. "South Park? Repeats of Gregory's Girl? Is that better than Lewis and Kingdom? It's mystifying and depriving Scottish viewers of high-quality British production."

At the same time, ITV's chief operating officer, John Cresswell, said STV was "damaging the ITV network and its ABC1 profile".

The two companies are locked in a separate row over £15m that ITV says it is owed by STV dating back to 1999.

Analysts warn that STV will need to take care not to antagonise ITV too much as the larger company is an important customer for STV's own productions, buying STV-made programmes such as Taggart.

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