13.59: Welcome to our live blog of the controller interview with ITV director of television Peter Fincham.

14.02: Asked what the differences are between BBC One and ITV, Fincham notes a big cultural difference. "ITV's a very different organisation from the BBC... the BBC is a spending organisation. There's plenty of pressures at the BBC... but that's thrown into very sharp relief at ITV."

14.05: "When you're at White City, you can do things purely because you think they're the right things to do," says Fincham, citing the decision to put Panorama back into peak. "I introduced an 8pm news bulletin because I thought it was too long to go from 6pm to 10pm without telling our audience the news headlines. You would couch those decisions in different terms at ITV."

14.07: "About a month ago, BBC One ran a series called Criminal Justice, stripped - we had a bit of a discussion at ITV - would we have done it? My view was yes, it was excellent drama." He cautions that "you can tie yourself up in knots" trying to determine what a BBC One or ITV1 programme is. "If you smell a hit, you say yes."

14.12: Asked about Shaps' outgoing schedule changes - bringing back News at Ten and moving Corrie's Sunday outing to Friday - Fincham comments that Sunday has "opened up" to permit Saturday night entertainment shows to move across the entire weekend.

14.14: "News at Ten's another story. Are we better with the News at Ten than the News at When? I think we are. Obviously we can't replicate the world when we had the News at Ten and the BBC had the Nine o'Clock News." He adds that having both choices at 10pm offers plurality but tacitly acknowledges that the BBC will lead in the slot. "We don't need to obsess about that. I'd rather have our premier news bulletin in a proper senior slot, so I think in that sense it's in the right place."

14.16: "We need to start eroding that differential with BBC One," he says.

14.17: Benidorm "is like a soap in the sun", Fincham suggests, characterising it as a "modern comedy" that built on the first series to deliver higher figures on its second series debut. "I think comedy on mainstream channels is perhaps the toughest genre."

14.20: "Mainstream channels should premiere comedy," he says, noting that during his time at the BBC he disagreed with the notion that BBC One should simply cherry-pick popular comedies from BBC Two and BBC Three.

14.21: "If we only had comedy on ITV2, we wouldn't have got to Benidorm."

14.22: He suggests that BBC One during his tenure premiered fewer comedies but had a higher recommission rate.

14.23: The topic moves from comedy to entertainment. "Entertainment is one of ITV1's formidable strengths. The really big entertainment calls are tough calls. I look at a show like I'm A Celebrity [commissioned by the questioner in this session, David Liddiment] - just by sheer dint of being done so well, it became a better show than Survivor. There's no hiding place if they go wrong."

Liddiment suggests that putting Ant and Dec helped "make that show" and "make them for ITV".

14.25: Fincham compares When Will I Be Famous? - of which he says bits didn't work - and Britain's Got Talent, which worked well on the screen. "We need more big entertainment successes on ITV. We can't take that many more talent searches - and yet you might have said that before Britain's Got Talent."

14.27: "I think genres wax and wane - I don't think genres ever die," says Fincham, noting that Pop Idol followed on from the Opportunity Knocks tradition. "There's no equivalent of Surprise, Surprise in the ITV schedule. They wax and they wane. If only it were a science."

14.29: "I didn't feel constrained in calls that I made at the BBC in [light entertainment]," says Fincham, while acknowledging more institutional concern over things like vulgarity at the corporation.

14.30: He notes that there is no equivalent in comedy of the BBC's Natural History Unit in consistently producing successful programmes.

14.35: Fincham says ITV1 has "enough soap". "They are an extraordinary success story. The story of the soaps is of audiences having an extraordinary appetite for them and for that appetite to increase. I don't think it can increase beyond the current number."

14.38: At the BBC, Fincham says, he noted a strong drama lineup on Sunday nights. "Lewis, Foyle's War, Midsomer Murders, Wild at Heart" are named. BBC One "seemed to suddenly get better" in 9pm drama in the week: "Spooks, Hustle" are cited.

14.39: Fincham says 9pm "is the premier slot of the night where you want to compete and get up to 5m" and is his key challenge at ITV.

14.41: Asked whether one has to moderate risk-taking at ITV1 - related to a remark by Simon Shaps a couple of years ago that he wanted to take more risks in drama - Fincham turns it around to avoid any negative connotation but says ensuring familiarity is important. "Out of Echo Beach and Moving Wallpaper we've got Moving Wallpaper which is a funny show and I'm glad it's coming back. That's actually quite a good yield."

14.43: "I don't think ITV should dig itself into a cop trench, I don't think the BBC should dig itself into a doc trench," Fincham says when asked about the police/medical dramas on both channels.

14.44: "We're looking for hit dramas. I believe strongly that we need returning series."

14.45: "There's room for event drama," he says, citing the commission of Collision.

14.46: He points to the Law and Order: London 13 episode commission as an attempt to give stability to the schedule. However he has "mixed feelings" about going from 6 to 13 episode commissions on a regular basis because it could reduce variety.

14.48: The conversation moves to factual. "I think that we need factual to occupy the 9pm territory. Mainstream channels can't afford endless amounts of 9pm midweek drama - so factual becomes a key part of that."

14.50: He notes that ITV1 does not have the relationship with its siblings as BBC One has with Two, Three and Four - and that it is therefore difficult for ITV1 to do what BBC One does, poaching shows from the other channels once they break into the mainstream.

14.51: Fincham further notes there is a financial disparity - that ITV3, the digital channel which he says has most in common with ITV1, does not have the budget of BBC Two.

14.52: He notes that ITV no longer has a natural history factual strand, and refers back to Survival.

14.58: A questioner points out that Fincham has not mentioned children's TV. Fincham responds that CITV is "very successful" as a digital channel and that children's is "an important part of what we do".

15.00: "Absolutely no decision on Harley Street - we'll look at that when we get to the end of the run."

15.02: Fincham cites family drama - Doctor Who, Robin Hood, Primeval - as an example of the new type of children's programming on mainstream TV.