Lost with all hands
David Liddiment recently wrote about the demise of ITV's drama Making Waves. Here its executive producer, Ted Childs, responds
Making Waves, by common consent, failed to attract enough viewers for a network under serious threat from keen competition, which cannot tolerate ratings failure. I was, effectively, the captain of this vessel that foundered on her maiden voyage and I feel I owe it our loyal ship's crew (writers, directors, producers, actors, technicians and supporting Royal Navy personnel) to explain why we failed to miss the iceberg, particularly as my recollection of events is not entirely in accord with that of David Liddiment, expounded on these pages two weeks ago.
David was generous enough to compliment me on my track record as a producer of popular television drama. I am not ashamed to include Making Waves in my portfolio. In fact, all of us at Carlton Television were pleased with the show. The audience response at preview screenings was positive. Ratings forecast analyses commissioned by Carlton were very favourable.
When the idea was first mooted it was strongly endorsed by ITV Network's head of drama, Nick Elliott. This was before David became director of programmes. When he arrived, it became clear that he regarded Making Waves as a non-starter. The BBC took a different view and my colleagues and I negotiated a deal to develop the series for BBC1. Then David left the network centre and suddenly the project was in demand again at ITV. As Carlton, which owned the property, was now 50% of ITV, the BBC - sadly as things turned out - ceased to be an option.
The network centre became involved in script development, casting and related matters. At no time during the production process was I, or anyone else at Carlton, led to believe it had any serious misgivings. The six-part series was delivered in August 2003 for transmission in the autumn of last year.
But then it was postponed until early 2004, and then again to the spring. In fact, it was rescheduled five times in all, "scheduled to death" as we say in the trade. Why? I was told the network's management team did not think the series would work for its target audience. What about the favourable forecast commissioned by Carlton from a highly reputable research organisation? Inaccurate, they said.
Finally, ITV committed to a definitive start date, Sunday, July 11. Sunday night is perceived to be a good launch slot for drama. And while we were slap bang in the summer holiday ratings graveyard, we followed Euro 2004 and came before the Olympics. Soon, however, Making Waves was on the move again. This time the launch was brought forward to Wednesday, July 7, perhaps to give Granada's Island At War an easier ride in a safe Sunday slot?
On the night, Making Waves was confronted by serious opposition. The Long Firm, a well-made and heavily promoted series, got an audience of more than 2 million for BBC2. But the real threat came from Supernanny, a reality show that won over 4 million viewers for Channel 4. Making Waves had to face these strong challenges with comparatively little publicity or on-air promotion.
David is a trifle disingenuous when he asserts that the audience came flooding back when Making Waves was replaced by It Shouldn't Happen on a TV Soap. In fact, the audience returned because Supernanny had ended. Could the Making Waves failure have been contrived to underwrite a self- fulfilling prophecy? Sour grapes from a disaffected producer? Perhaps, but I believe that a properly scheduled and promoted Making Waves would have delivered a decent audience.
If, as David maintains, Making Waves never enjoyed the network's confidence, why was it commissioned? Why did the network take part in its development? Why wait until £5m had been spent and then persistently delay transmission and denigrate the series' prospects? Why deny it the level of promotion and publicity any new drama needs? Making Waves is only one of several high-cost dramas axed over the past year, and David implies that there is courageous merit in such forceful if negative action. It may be the way to run a railway these days, but what about a TV network anxious to increase its profitability?
I appreciate that the scar of letting Men Behaving Badly go to the BBC is still etched on the soul of the ITV network centre but, if there was no faith in a programme format, why waste millions commissioning it merely to thwart an uncertain potential threat from the corporation?
ITV is now effectively one company and, like the BBC and Channel 4 and Five, is capable of directly commissioning its own output. If it did, would there be the same level of wasteful dumping of delivered programmes? Might ITV plc be maintaining a rather expensive network centre dog when it should be barking itself?
Don't ask me. Remember, key figures in ITV originally thought that a series about a non-violent, non-swearing, aesthetic detective called Morse was unlikely to make much of an impression on the audience. So what do I know?
· Ted Childs' credits include Inspector Morse, Kavanagh QC and Soldier, Soldier
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