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Zai Bennett, controller of ITV2, was among the great and the good of TV who were sharing their extensive knowledge with the future stars of television at this year's Television and Young People forum at MGEITF.
Are you hoping ITV2 will become like BBC Two is for BBC One - in the way it allows new talent and new ideas to grow before transferring to the main channel?
We are absolutely doing that. Next year we will have 10 new sketch and sitcom shows. We have Comedy Cuts which is all about new talent, which will be in its second series for January 2008. We've got shows like Secret Diary of a Call Girl - made by a big production company - really big, professional. And it's written by Lucy Prebble who is only 25, and directed by a guy called Yann Demange, who's done a few promos but is virtually out of film school. So new talent on screen and off screen.
It's ITV2's first big drama - is there a lot of pressure on you for it to work?
There's is pressure, yes, but I am absolutely confident that we've ticked every possibly box to make sure it does work. It's got a huge star - Billie Piper - doing something that's different for her. First big thing she's done since Doctor Who. It's fun, it's sexy, so I'm pretty confident.
ITV2 has a lot of new comedy coming on in 2007/8. Have you had to convince new talent ITV2 is the place to come for comedy now?
It's taken time. Trust only develops over time. I wouldn't say it's been hard, but nearly all of the people in the comedy community are lovely people, who desperately want to make comedy. But they want to make it so it works, and their performers and artists have safe places to work and they're not going to be ripped around the schedule. They want to feel they have a future with you and the channel, and that you're not going to decide to 'do a 180' and say 'we're not doing comedy now.' Because for 18 months I've been banging on about it and I've commissioned so much, they I think now they definitely trust us.
Was Joe Talbot (former ITV2 deputy commissioner, now working for NutsTV) involved in any of those
He looked after Comedy Cuts, but the other stuff is dealt with by myself, Paul Jackson and Michaela [Hennessey-Vass].
So you all read the scripts?
Yeah.
You were very candid to the TVYP forum that you're an entertainment channel - you're there to make money and get the ratings in. Do you think that surprised them?
There's no point sugar-coating it. We're a commercial organisation and we're there to make money. I like the fact that we make money by making very nice creative programmes with very creative talented people in lots of different ways. That's why I work in telly. But I was saying that to explain to the TVYP guys the pressures we're under, and why we're not BBC Three or E4, and why.
Are you hoping ITV2 will get the Digital Channel of the Year award at MGEITF? It's certainly been a great year for you.
Yeah of course! It would be brilliant if we did. No, we've had enough this year, we're very happy. And there's lots of other good channels.
You've certainly grown your share.
We're doing okay. We're growing and the most important thing for me is that we're doing lots of original new unique programming this autumn and that we're delivering on the things we said we'd do this autumn. Make sure it moves well away from ITV1, totally [target at] 16-34 (years), and we've weeded out the more middle ground programming and we're totally ruthless about being young.
And finally, will WAGs Boutique or Deadline be making a comeback?
We're talking to producers about that, about tweaks we could make, so we haven't decided definitely about those.
Thanks Zai!
