CEOInterviews.AIKevin Lygo of ITV | Meet the Controller

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Loren0:00

Hello everybody, this is us. Oh hi. Come down, come down. People are still finding their seats. Welcome, take a pew. Thank you very much for coming along. I'm Loren, delighted to be here. Good festival so far? What's the mood in the room? A reserved fireworks display type reaction. Excellent. Okay, well, welcome. Thank you very much for making time to come to this controller session. Joining us in conversation today we have the controller of ITV, Kevin Lygo. We are going to be talking to him. The Radio Times called him a well-liked maverick who isn't afraid to take risks. I'm sure you know, in his early days as controller of Channel 4, he commissioned among other things Spaced, TFI Friday, and Big Brother. And in his first year in the job at ITV, he has persuaded a record number of TV viewers to enjoy Piers Morgan for breakfast. I can only apologise. Now he's made Queen Victoria sexy and caused a stir with the nightly show. We may touch upon some or all of those things today. In our session, he's going to be giving us a glimpse of some upcoming commissions, telling us what's worked, what hasn't worked so well, and what the channel is looking for in 2018. We're also going to be hearing from ITV's head of factual, Sue Murphy. He joins me here, who's going to be telling us what her department have got planned for the next season and giving us a bit of an insight into what they're looking for as well. And we have Sue Green, who's head of entertainment at ITV. She's gone from producing TV programmes at Cycle to commissioning them at ITV. We're going to be finding out her perspective, what's on her wish list for the upcoming seasons, and hopefully some tips on how to pitch successfully as well. And if you do have a question, why not send it in anonymously via the app. I would do so while you can, because I just noticed this, which seems like potential trouble ahead. But I have your questions coming in here anonymously, so do send them to us via the app. Okay, so welcome, controller of ITV, Kevin Lygo.

K

Kevin Lygo2:12

So you're going to talk us through a little bit of ITV's drama. Yes, to start off with, I shall be challenging Pali Hill because he can't be here. I'll bluff my way through the drama section. What would you like to know? Well, first we should have a little peek at what's been going on. Let's have a look at an overview of some of ITV's drama offerings. This is a three-parter by Mike Bartlett, a wonderful playwright. What drama has to do on the channel is it's nearly always at 9 o'clock. Our challenge at 9 is to get lighter viewers of ITV to come to the channel. Essentially, we want to square the circle. The regular heartland viewers of ITV predominantly like the soaps, but if you don't watch them, you wonder what's on at 9. Drama is the biggest driver to get these lighter viewers, who are commercially important. Polly and the team are trying to make mainstream, populist, grabby, interesting drama. In the Venn diagram of everything you'd like in a drama, you occasionally hit the sweet spot. This does. It's about a child who is tragically stabbed, and the story becomes about the father becoming obsessed with the flash surgeon played by Adrian Lester. It's a psychological thriller. I think it will catch the mood. Over the past year, we've seen successes like Victoria, Unforgotten, Broadchurch. The last series of Broadchurch was extraordinary, the most successful drama this year on any channel. It shows if you get it right, they'll come in droves. This autumn, we have returning hits like Doc Martin, Victoria, Cold Feet, and new ones like 'A Liar' starring Joanna Froggatt. It's about rape, and we see two sides of it. It's brilliant acted and beautifully made.

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Loren2:53

Okay, thank you Kevin. Right, okay, well that's drama. And we're going to get into the other stuff a little bit later. Up next I have Sue Murphy, head of factual. So you've got a very broad remit across factual. We've got quite a chunky clip to watch to give us a sense of that, so we'll pick up on the other side of it. All right, let's have a look at what's been going on in factual.

Um, but yeah, obviously we can see the breadth there. But talk me through those three choices.

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Sue Murphy7:36

Okay, so the reason I chose those three collectively is I've been here about a year and what I've realized is it's basically about very big stories that people care about now. You can wrap it up in any kind of way. If you can get that right, we can get a big audience to factual on ITV. We're driving more towards events in the schedule. For 9 o'clock, we're looking for big, noisy, talk-about shows that attract a large audience. The three examples are events – two were events and hopefully one will be an event.

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Loren7:36

So tell me a little bit about the real crime strands. Is that something you're interested in doing more of?

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Sue Murphy7:36

Yes. Last year we said we'd do more crime and this autumn we are. We have a season trial that showcases big-name talent. Trevor will be in it, Don will be involved. It's a succession of short series and films where household names go into extreme hidden worlds.

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Loren7:36

And is that the kind of thing you're looking for more often? More courageous?

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Sue Murphy7:36

Absolutely. Crime is big for ITV. It's a short hop from great drama. Even before Netflix, ITV was doing a lot of crime. It has a big appetite.

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Loren7:36

So that's what you're looking for. What about what hasn't worked? What are you done with and moving on from?

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Sue Murphy7:36

I think the smaller, quieter ideas, often beautifully made, don't punch through. Straight observational documentary is very hard to punch through now on ITV. We had a short series on EasyJet that worked because it was entertaining and had something new to say. We tweaked it and it did well. So we're looking for something that isn't straight and boring.

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Loren7:36

You're talking about shows punching through and creating a conversation. How big a part is social media in that?

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Sue Murphy7:36

I think it is important, especially in the way we market the shows. The marketing guys are clever about getting the message out on different platforms. For a show like For Monty, we did brilliant social media. But it's not about interactivity within the programs.

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Loren7:36

Do you feel that anything's missing in the picture overall?

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Sue Murphy7:36

Yeah, more hits, more 9 o'clock hits, more big new reality shows, more big new factual shows. It feels like the successful ones have been around for 10 years. I think it's a massive opportunity for people in this room. As for what excites me, factual is mine. I live within that world. We have a new reality show where we take aging national treasures to America to find out what it's like when you legalize cannabis. Another is 'Hundred Years Younger Experiment' where we take famous faces to a blue zone in Europe to try an extreme anti-aging regime. I love it when we can take something really important and wrap it up in entertaining wrapping.

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Loren13:09

Okay, thank you very much, Sue Murphy. Alright, I'm now going to speak to Sue Green. Sue, should we have a look at what you've been doing in your department? A tickler.

So to keep him busy, yes. I mean, as I mentioned, you were previously at a TV production company, and now commissioning. How has it been and what have you been working on?

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Sue Green13:49

Well, in some ways it hasn't changed at all because I've stayed close to the shows. We've kept the big shows fresh, like The Voice and The Voice Kids. It's not easy to keep them at the top of their game. We've commissioned new stuff like 'Car Wash Laughs in Vegas' with old gold legends, and 'Bromans' where eight couples go to Rome to find out who is the ultimate lad. I try to do everything in a way that feels original. When I pitch to Kevin, I only pitch what I really believe in.

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Loren13:49

And what about the initial pitch to you? How do you like to work and what advice can you give people commissioning?

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Sue Green13:49

It starts with a conversation. Sometimes we hit gold chatting about what we want to do. Sometimes it takes time, but you've got to die trying. For example, a producer came in with an idea about couples. I told him it was dry, so we gave him £10,000 to develop it. He got a couple who were arguing constantly, and it was hilarious. Now we're making a fully funded pilot. So it's about being together and knowing that I will go in with you to Kevin if I believe it can be a hit.

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Loren21:11

Okay, fantastic. Thank you very much. Very insightful. We will start to take a bit of a deeper dive with Kevin next. But before we do that, let's take a look at the ITV showreel.

So Kevin, last year you were sat in that chair or a very similar chair, fresh to the job, lots of ideas. You've been there a year. Are you happy with how it's gone?

K

Kevin Lygo21:34

Yes, I think it's been a very good year so far for ITV. The ratings are up, which is no mean feat in the modern world. I'm happy with all the shows, but can we do more? Yes. I identified early on that we need to concentrate on the long-running shows that have been around for a while. They often get neglected. By hiring Sue Green, I wanted to concentrate on the big entertainment shows. We've kept X Factor and I'm a Celebrity strong. The soaps are vitally important. We also need to rejuvenate these shows and find new stuff. It has been a tough year in primetime, with declines at 8pm and 9pm and 10pm.

You mitigate that as a control. You're a commercial channel. Honestly, I don't think I've been told they're not down. I would say you keep experimenting, you refresh the tried and tested, and you keep experimenting with new things. So with drama, as we said, it is about can you build new shows that will run for several years if you're lucky and grow even like Broadchurch did. Downton came to an end, we missed that, but Victoria's come along and starts again this Sunday, next Sunday, and is a big hit for us, kind of sawed off Poldark, and now will become a staple of our output. Similarly, Cold Feet was some risk to bring back, but it was a much beloved show, did really well, it's come back again. So that mixed with some of the new clips you've seen of traumas is one way of dealing with.

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Loren25:31

I think this time last year you said you wanted to create a Cold Feet for the under 35s for the new generation. I was gonna check about that. I mean, does it matter to you that under thirty-fives are watching less TV if they're coming to ITV in droves?

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Kevin Lygo25:48

No, I mean look, you just want ITV to be about big shows, mainstream shows, popular shows. We're an entertainment channel with a vital news division, and our job is to get the biggest audiences. I saw a fantastic chart listing the top rated shows, and the first 675 shows this year are on ITV. I thought 'stuff you guys'. I was focused on ITV being about getting these big exciting events. That's why I talk about The Full Monty, because it did really well and everybody talked about it. You could see with the Diana doc, we were the first one out and it got nearly 12 million viewers. You can bring enormous volume to these shows on the channel. With young people, the undoubted hit of this year was Love Island, and that was a show purely about young people watching. More people watch that than anything ever. I think without my TV on the main channel, you just want as many people as you can all the time. The thing I've shifted slightly with the digital channels is that ITV2 primarily wants 16 to 34, that's how we make our living. The target for ITV2 was to up our 16-34 share. E4 has been the market leader for years, but we've now overtaken E4 for the first time ever. That's to do with Seth MacFarlane and the two shows late at night, but Love Island comes in and busts the myth that young people don't want to watch telly. It was on every night at 9 o'clock for seven weeks, brilliantly made. It just signals that mainstream telly isn't over. Over three million people watched the final, and they were nearly all between 16 and 34. I wouldn't move it to ITV1 because you would lose some of the cachet, some of the cool, some of the young viewers, and gain older viewers which we can get with other stuff. It's best kept doing an incredible job on ITV2. It's very similar to the way Big Brother was all those years ago on Channel 4. Love Island is a phenomenon of this year. They're so rare these big hits for young people. All hail everybody who made that show.

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Loren29:02

And what about obviously looking after the core bulk of your daytime output as you say and the really big properties? But what about the bold choices? Because you did say recently that you're willing to be bored when it comes to drama with you. What's bold for Kevin? Like, what are you looking for?

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Kevin Lygo29:23

Well, a word on daytime. When I first joined ITV six, seven years ago, they changed Good Morning Television into whatever Daybreaker was called, and it didn't work. The pain when you're broadcasting a show that isn't working every day for several hours is intense. It's taken a long time and a lot of people's hard work to get GMB really cooking now. Piers plays a big role in that. I think it's undoubtedly the case that we've fixed our breakfast proposition, and that passes on through the rest of the day. GMB is up considerably this year, so are Lorraine, Jeremy Kyle, Loose Women. Keeping your eye on that is as important as finding new things. Getting those shows to work is a very satisfying feeling. As for the bold entertainment slate, just trying it was good in itself. It sent a signal that we are trying new things. Some of them don't work, but you absolutely love them. Harry Hill's Fun Cups I thought was brilliant, didn't rate very well, but we are bringing it back next year. With something like The Nightly Show, it got disproportionate attention because everybody in the industry wants one of those shows to work. It was an experiment. It didn't work. I think a different host every week made it difficult for the production team. Also, maybe 10 o'clock was too early for ITV. So a number of things.

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Loren30:43

And you said you have put yourself out there with this very bold entertainment slate and taken risks in the past year. Don't ask me, ask Britain, Alien Fun Cups, Your Big Heads, The Nightly Show. How much of a success has that boldness been?

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Kevin Lygo31:02

I think just trying it was good in itself.

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Loren32:54

What about the kind of floor around the decision to move the news? I mean, because you wanted to try it at 10 o'clock. The challenge with our schedule is it's quite locked down. At 10 o'clock we go to the news, which is commercially not that significant, and it takes you through to 10:45. Ten o'clock could open up the channel to extend primetime. So are you going to persist with that experimental approach?

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Kevin Lygo33:48

Look, I'm delighted with the news and it was always going to come back there. The issue is are there areas in the schedule that can increase our share, bring in commercial revenue, and make it more lively? I think so. Next year, one of the things if you're hard on yourself is that Saturday night early evening slots haven't established a big hit in the last five to seven years. We have some lovely shows, but they're not big hits. I thought one of the things we could do is when we get a show we believe in, ITV does a big drumroll and says come and look at this, and maybe strip it across the week in peak time. Then people will come and have a look. It's very difficult on a Saturday night at 7:30 against Strictly. The BBC has found that too. So we try big shows and say 'roll up, roll up, here is our big new entertainment show, do you like it?' For a week or ten days, we'll break up the regularity of the schedule and try to get new people in. If you stumble across a show that really works, it's joyous. Our biggest shows like I'm a Celebrity, Britain's Got Talent are stripped across the week. Love Island was another example, every night for seven weeks at the same time. That's a way of waking people up and saying come and look at this.

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Loren36:13

That attitude extending into drama? Is that drama you know, your view across the board?

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Kevin Lygo36:20

Drama is though people have a great enormous range to choose from. We're interested in drama that gets many viewers. Beautifully crafted little things are not really what we're after. I'll watch them as a viewer, but they probably won't find their place on ITV. We can do serious, it doesn't have to be big entertaining. Look at Jeff Pope's Little Boy Blue earlier this year, brilliant serious drama that rated incredibly. So we can do that. You saw with traumas, it's a small thing, three hours, but with that cast and us getting behind it, I think people will come in big numbers.

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Loren37:13

Plenty of Indies still complain that they can't compete with ITV Studios companies when it comes to pitching. How would you answer them and reassure them?

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Kevin Lygo37:21

I think 63 percent or something of what we make is made by us and the companies we own. But vast chunks of that is made up of Corrie, Emmerdale, Good Morning Britain, This Morning. A lot of Indies work for ITV in various ways. The thing to do, however big you are, is to get in to see them. I tell them they've got to see more people, start the dialogue about an idea. Get their help and expertise. There genuinely is a lot of opportunity, particularly in Scotland.

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Loren38:09

Well, I asked Sue what's missing. What would you say?

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Kevin Lygo38:11

Well, I'm not currently saying more hits, please. But the genre thing is that hits never came by commissioning a suit prescribing 'we need a cookery show.' If you've got one, fine. But what Sue said is absolutely true: to reach a lot of people, it needs to be something that touches a lot of people in an everyday way. I even remember running all sorts of flashes, but if you do 'who won, we'd you used to joke' if the ratings were bad, 'people aren't watching the kind first' very much do a 'what's in their sandwich this week' and the ratings always go up. So there are touch things that people do. With ITV, it is about what people are concerned about, what they're interested in, what they can relate to. We live in a media world and our habits are very different to the way most people live. It's a very metropolitan world. Most people in London don't get home till 7:00, 7:30 later. But outside London, most people are home by 6 o'clock. That's why our 6 o'clock news hour does so well. Those are the people who watch. Hardly anybody in this room watches Emmerdale, but in Yorkshire and Lancashire, Emmerdale has an unbelievable 75% share.

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Loren40:26

Does that mean more commissioning from the nations and regions?

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Kevin Lygo40:29

Yeah, I think it's diversity in a wider sense. Are we relating to the people who watch our shows? We could always do better than that.

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Loren40:39

And what about the importance of 9 p.m.? You've talked about that. Are you still in the business of must-watch TV?

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Kevin Lygo40:46

I think 9 o'clock is the great beacon for must-watch because we are primarily a soap channel in the week, owning the weekday between 7 and 9 with 11 half-hours of soap. It's an amazing thing that brings home the bacon. But if you don't watch the soaps, it's very hard to get a new viewer to watch Corrie or Emmerdale. So at 9 o'clock, if you don't watch soaps, you look and think 'what's on ITV?' That's where our sales teams are desperate to get people who don't watch a lot of ITV. We need to stay in the drama and sport game. I want to be able to do more drama. We do a lot now, as much as the BBC.

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Loren42:13

And what about the Saturday night? Is that still an opportunity?

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Kevin Lygo42:18

Absolutely vital. We're in a fortunate position that there are so many returning big hits. The trick is to keep them at the top of their game and also make way for new shows. We have to be quite brutal. We'll try new things and if they don't rate, they'll probably be dead and won't come back, no matter how much we like them. It depends where it is and what's against it, but it needs to get three to four million viewers. We're in the business of finding the next generation of X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, I'm a Celebrity, and The Voice. When you're pitching shows, honestly ask yourself: is this show capable of getting over five million viewers every Saturday night on ITV? Some lovely shows will never do that, and we're not that interested in those. We want to find shows that become great household brands.

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Loren43:29

Are there possibilities in the pipeline?

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Kevin Lygo43:31

Oh yeah. Because we're quite brutal, there's always stuff to come. There are at least seven or eight new slots next year for new entertainment shows, and they're very well funded.

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Loren43:46

Okay, I'm going to take a question from the app now. Thank you for sending these in. Will you shelve I'm a Celeb for a year or replace if he isn't ready to return? Very dare? Ant is doing really well and we're expecting him to return for I'm a Celeb, so it'll be on. Irreplaceable? Yes. And ITV content is great, but more and more audiences want to watch on demand. Any plans to invest in the tech behind ITV Hub? Currently v clunky for user.

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Kevin Lygo43:57

Ant is doing really well and we're expecting him to return for I'm a Celebrity, so it'll be on. Irreplaceable? Yes. As for the Hub, it's vital. It's gone through a big revolution in the last few years. I'd be terribly depressed if it's not working somewhere because mine works perfectly. It's more and more how people like to watch our program, so we will keep investing and making it bigger.

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Loren44:45

What's the future of scripted comedy on ITV1?

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Kevin Lygo44:46

Bleak.

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Loren44:51

Harsh but fair. It did say brutal. No, look, I've spent half my life making comedies, some really bad, some wonderful. It is the toughest thing to get to work on ITV. There hasn't been a hit sitcom in quite a while. They pinched Birds of a Feather a few years ago, that worked really well, but that's cheating. Part of the reason is the increase in soaps and the fact that Corrie particularly is genuinely funny and has what sitcom had: you spend time with characters and comedy comes out of character. That has eaten up a lot of the slots and gives the audience the comedy drug they want.

We've got a question about Corrie actually. What night of the week's the extra Corrie going to air?

K

Kevin Lygo46:01

Yes, you're allowed to say. Are you asking me? Yes, yes, can't convey that, but it'll go in the perfect place.

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Loren46:11

And which of the channels would you like to run?

K

Kevin Lygo46:14

I quite like that. What? Because I've run all the others. I don't know, it's interesting to have a point of comparison. I think Dave plus one is probably my... I don't know. I'm delighted to be running ITV.

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Loren46:33

We've got another one here. How big a consideration is performance on ITV Hub in commissioning programmes in the first place?

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Kevin Lygo46:41

Well, for the young viewers, Love Island particularly, I don't go on about it, but it was such a hit it transformed the Hub. Now 75% of all 16-34 year olds in this country have registered for the Hub. So the Hub is just, is it taken into commissioning? I think no, but it is going to be soon. Love Island has shown us that the overnight is one measurement, there's also the catch-up on the Hub or on your PVR. We are all working out how to maximize money from these shows when more people watch later. Drama is the most downloaded and watched later. For a commercial channel, if you watch on the Hub with ads, that's brilliant. Ultimately, more people watching ITV programming on any device is a good thing.

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Loren47:57

Somebody's asking about Harry Hill and the fact that he has struggled a little bit since TV Burp ended. You've said that you're gonna bring back Fun Caps?

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Kevin Lygo48:07

Yes, Fun Caps. I just loved it, I thought it was really funny. Maybe we didn't put it in the right place, so it'll come back in the sort of TV Burp slot on Saturday night early, because he's adored by kids. That's one weakness of mine where I just thought it's so good, I think the viewers will come eventually.

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Loren48:27

And what about The Nightly Show? Is that coming back?

K

Kevin Lygo48:30

No, certainly not at 10 o'clock. I think the challenge is can it work for us later?

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Loren48:40

We've only got a minute left. One more quick question. We've talked a lot about prime time and entertainment, factual drama, not really about news. Is that still...?

K

Kevin Lygo48:48

I think news is more vital than ever. Everybody now is worried about fake news, not news. ITV and ITN together are the absolute major alternative to the BBC. It's never been more vital. With the election coverage, ITV really woke up with that fantastic Osborn combination which was fun. The news now with Tom leading the 10 o'clock and the oft neglected 6:30 news is vital, gets three and a half to four million viewers. It's interesting because we are in this media bubble. I used to run Channel 4 and talk about Channel 4 news all the time, but ITV news gets seven times the ratings. Our regional output: we have 17 regional news divisions. I'm making my way around them. The regional news is really important. We spend 100 million pounds on news. It's a tentacle deep into local communities. If you get out of London, ITV is probably their first choice.

Kevin Lygo of ITV | Meet the Controller | EITF 2017