ITV muscles in on Channel 4's territory with channel modelled on HBO
ITV is hoping to move upmarket into Channel 4's territory with a new channel modelled on HBO, the US broadcaster that brought the world Sex and the City, Six Feet Under and The Sopranos.
ITV4, the latest in a series of spinoff channels designed to compensate for declining ratings on its main channel in an increasingly multichannel world, will launch on November 1 and is aimed at men aged 25 to 44 who rarely watch ITV.
At launch, it will predominantly feature US imports including the remake of Kojak with Ving Rhames, familiar to moviegoers from Pulp Fiction and Mission Impossible, taking the role made famous by Telly Savalas in the 70s. Other imports include Traffic, a miniseries based on the Oscar-winning film, and Wanted, a critically acclaimed crime drama.
Nigel Pickard, the director of programmes, said the network hoped to target "people who know their telly and want grown-up entertainment", who were internet users and "heavily into culture". He promised that ITV4 would be "stylish and articulate, confident and informed" and not "patronising or laddish" or "shocking for the sake of being shocking".
Classic leftfield US comedies including The Larry Sanders Show, nightly episodes of Late Show with David Letterman and the politically incorrect puppet show Crankers Yankers will be complemented by topical documentaries including the controversial OutFoxed, which deconstructs Rupert Murdoch's news network.
As such, it is likely to cross over with Channel 4's More4, which launches next month with a diet of US and UK drama, documentaries, news and comedy.
Movies will include a spaghetti western season, gritty gangster thrillers such as Carlito's Way and the films of Sam Peckinpah, David Cronenberg and Stanley Kubrick. Sport will also be a key component, including live Champions League football, boxing, the Tour de France and next summer's World Cup. But Stephen Arnell, the channel's editor, said only "premium sport" would be featured, with no "darts or crown green bowling".
He said the channel wanted to be seen as more for Arena readers than those of weekly lads' mags Nuts and Zoo. "We'd aspire to be an HBO type of channel. The medium- to long-term aspiration is to be as highly regarded as HBO is in the States."
ITV4 completes the network's lineup of channels on digital television, which also includes ITV2, a sister network offering spinoff entertainment shows aimed at a younger audience, and ITV3, featuring classic series from its archive.
After a challenging summer with some high-profile flops, Mr Pickard said ITV was "back on form" with Saturday night hit The X-Factor and an autumn slate of big budget drama including a new crime series, Vincent, starring Ray Winstone, and a detective drama, Jericho, starring Robert Lindsay.
With the existing analogue signal beginning to be switched off from 2008, ITV's strategy has been deemed successful in maintaining its overall viewing share in multichannel homes. But it has been said that ITV2 and ITV3, for which it receives lower advertising rates, merely tend to cannibalise audiences on its main channel.
But Mr Arnell said ITV4 was aimed at an entirely new audience. The channel will be broadcast from 6pm every day on cable, satellite and Freeview. It will eventually share its slot with ITV's planned children's channel, which will be aired throughout the day.
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