Could the Independent close?

Billionaires are fighting over its future. With Denis O'Brien saying that if he wins control of Independent News & Media he will sell the UK newspapers off, which some commentators are now saying could lead to the 22-year-old loss-making Independent closing.
The Independent News & Media chief executive and founder, Tony O'Reilly, has a very tough battle on his hands against O'Brien, who seems to have a massive grudge against his fellow Irishman and owns 22.2% of the company making him the biggest shareholder after O'Reilly.

The unpleasantness between the two dates back to 2001 when O'Reilly thwarted O'Brien in a battle for control of Irish telecoms firm Eircom. Now O'Brien wants his own back.

And what a feud it is. He is using his many millions to slowly buy up IN&M, which owns the Independent in the UK as well as the one in Dublin and various newspaper assets in Australia and New Zealand.

We know it's a grudge as IN&M is doing pretty well under O'Reilly, as former Guardian editor Peter Preston pointed out in the Observer.

"Denis O'Brien, the 'dissident shareholder' who wants to take over Tony O'Reilly's Independent News and Media group, obviously thinks he can run it much better. Pause and scratch head. Better than operating profits up 6 per cent in 2007? Better than margins boosted to 21.9%? Better than ad revenues growing at 5.4%? Better than online cash jumping 108%?"

"Former Sindy editor Peter Wilby, in his Guardian column today, also puts his money on O'Reilly, arguing that "the papers might well close" if O'Brien sold them off. I agree. There will be bidders, of course, but it would take a Rupert Murdoch to save them if INM is forced to sell. And that is surely out of the question, isn't it?"

BBC fit of giggles and schadenfreude

Something going on at the BBC this morning, Charlotte Green burst into giggles reading an obit on the 'Today Programme' on Radio 4. It has since been covered in more than half a dozen places making Green's laughter some of the most heavily reported ever.

The giggling, which has since been rebroadcast online and on Radio Five Live, led to hundreds of listeners apparently contacting Radio 4 after Green dissolved into giggles while reading a bulletin on 'Today'.

Her giggles came after a piece on the oldest known recording of the human voice, but unfortunately really got going during the next item about the death of screenwriter Abby Mann.

Apparently, most listeners contacting the BBC said "how much they had enjoyed the moment", according to 'Today' editor Ceri Thomas.

It was quite amusing and admittedly it is hard not to laugh when listening, but a news story in itself?

Well, apparently so. Her fits of giggling have been covered this morning by The Guardian (two pieces), The Times and The Independent with the latter calling it a meltdown.

Definitely a slow news week, but maybe Elisabeth Mahoney at The Guardian is right and we should be grateful for Green.

"It is the world turned ever so briefly upside down, and for that -- especially on a Friday morning, and even more especially on a station and programme that exudes establishment values and sober restraint the rest of the time -- we should be very grateful."

How to get a fourth season

It's the season where US TV executives are cancelling shows. Leaving many show runners very anxious. The same fate could have also befallen the show 'How I Met Your Mother', if it were not for the brilliant whiz of signing Britney Spears for a guest appearance.

Her turn as ditzy receptionist Abby in the show pulled in almost an extra 3m viewers and has possibly won the show a fourth season.

Her appearance came at the height of all of her media related troubles, but still 'How I Met My Mother' was only averaging 7.8m an episode, which are not great numbers.

When Britney made her appearance on the CBS show it attracted 10.6m, giving the show its highest ratings this season.

Britney can save you and possibly herself as well, as her funny performance was praised by critics with the New York Daily News saying that "Spears proved she can act every bit as well as she can sing" and the New York Post adding that "Brit looked slim, trim and gorgeous".

It now looks like CBS could give the show a fourth season. It's not the only one to hear some good news this week. Fox has stuck with twisty turny prison drama 'Prison Break'.

I liked this show and have watched large parts on DVD, but even as the actors strike cut the third season short at 13 episodes it seemed unlikely it would get a fourth after audiences of only around 8m.

But Fox has ordered a full run of 22 episodes, which is good news for Sky One, where the show is one of its better performers as is Fox-renewed crime drama 'Bones'. I just hope having broken out of prison in Chicago and in Panama they don't go for a triple. Although mighty fine cliff hanger.

Fox wasted no time in dumping comedy 'The Return of Jezebel James', which aired only two episodes.

For Virgin 1 the news is good on the Terminator front. Fox is almost certain to bring back 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' after the finale's performance last week did well and with more Terminator movies on the way (starring Christian Bale) the future is looking bright... you know, killer computer networks aside.

Looks like Michelle Ryan's really pretty good 'Bionic Woman' won't be back, which appears a shame. It did will on ITV2 and Ryan is comes over like a cool brunette able to do a more than passable American accent. It also helps that bad bionic girl, Katee Sackhoff of 'Battlestar Galactica' Starbuck fame, is also very good.

Talking of the WBS (World's Best Show) 'Battlestar Galactica' returns in the US and Sky One on April 8. Sadly that is the fourth and final season although reports last week said that it might get its own spin-off with the Sci-Fi Channel has green lighted a pre-quel show called 'Caprica' and from what one of Battlestar's creators, David Eick has to say it sounds pretty cool (to the geek that is me, anyway).

"'Caprica' is a story that Ron Moore and I concocted with [co-executive producer] Remi Aubuchon, and we're casting as we speak," Eick said. "I'm very excited about that. If 'Battlestar Galactica' is 'Black Hawk Down,' I would say that 'Caprica' is 'American Beauty.'

"'Caprica' is all about the inner lives of the people on a planet and how their personal relationships as well as their professional relationships inform what will become the creation of the Cylons," he said.

Looks like 'Sex and the City' author Candace Bushnell's stab at her own show has failed, with ABC's deciding not to bring back 'Cashmere Mafia': Also cancelled is 'Jericho', with shows such as 'Moonlight', the 'Angel'-alike vampire detective show airing on Virgin TV's Living, and 'Reaper' on the cusp.

GMG and the capitalists

Much talk about the Guardian Media Group over the last few days with talk of new investment funds, redundancies and Roy Greenslade in his Evening Standard column about what happens when the liberal left gets in bed with venture capitalists.
GMG is, of course, heavily in bed (I'm not sure you can be heavily in bed, but you get the idea) with Apax headed by Stephen Grabiner. It bought Emap's B2B arm for £1.1bn in December with Apax, with which it already sold half of Trader Media Group to (Autotrader).

"Apax is", Greenslade writes, "the kind of private-equity company that has had many a Guardian journalist breaking out in spots".

That might be and while it is early days, GMG has clearly taken its time and been selective (you'd have to be with Polly Toynbee as top private equity critic at the Guardian) and concluded that Grabiner (formerly of The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express and ONdigital,) is someone it can do business with. Maybe helped by that background in newspapers.

Carolyn McCall, GMG chief executive, said last week that Emap is seen as a long-term project: "Apax could be in for six years or more"; and Grabiner in the Daily Telegraph seems to agree (give or take a year): "A typical private equity timeframe in the new world is four to five years. I would assume five years for this one. Emap is all about building the business".

But it is not without risk and the risk mostly being saddled with debt. The Trader Media deal involved over £800m of debt and Emap has £700m.

But despite this debt and the investment tied up in the two ventures, it is says McCall, the best way forward.

It's not the only way though. At the weekend, McCall revealed details of a new investment fund of around £100m, which would be invested outside the media industry.

All of this is part of GMG's strategy to ensure the future of The Guardian and The Observer. Pretty much like The New York Times (which has the unfortunate burden of being publicly quoted) everything in GMG is done for the newspapers and their websites and that all assets are in play and could be sold at some later date including its radio stations Smooth ("For London, for Smooth [advertising to win listeners], it's like pouring money down the drain," McCall says).

With the Emap deal being bedded down, the new investment trust being established, McCall appears to be far from finished. Having taken Emap, she told the Sunday Times the parts of the business that she is most interested in are the international bits that are not reliant on advertising, like the fashion-industry website WGSN, the Cannes Lions advertising festival and Middle Eastern Economic Digest Projects.

"Emap gets 60% of its revenues from data or events. The most important thing for us is to expand in these high-growth areas," she said.

That might mean expansion in the US and Asia, something that Grabiner has talked about as well, where the markets are growing faster.

Growing the business and getting those returns is key to the GMG strategy, particularly because the next two years are going to be a testing time of change for the papers. The digital push continues as does the moves towards integration and new offices. All of this comes against a backdrop of falling ad revenues, which will hit newspapers hard. The Guardian might not be losing a lot, and less than the Independent, but it is losing cash.

Earlier this week, 19 journalists took voluntary redundancy with more expected (but no overall drop in editorial headcount) as it creates its integrated news room and moves to greater cooperation between the Guardian and Observer.

McCall has conceded that The Guardian will not make a profit for at least the next two years because of the ad slowdown.

Google has a change of heart... kind of

Google seems to have had a change of heart on the issue of giving publishers more control of their content, claiming that the only barriers to change was a technical one. This from Google, which is not know for being famously short of developers.
Earlier this week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he supported the aim of the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) to give publishers more control over the use of their content.

At a conference in Sydney, Schmidt said that the only barriers to Google's implementation of ACAP were "technical", and he denied that Google was reluctant to embrace the system because of commercial self-interest.
"It is not that we don't want them [publishers] to be able to control their information," he said.

Schmidt added said that ACAP, as currently specified, is incompatible with Google's proprietary search engine technology but that "we have some people working with them to see if the proposal can be modified to work in the way our search engines work". There is no timetable yet, but it should not take a great deal of time to fix.

When it comes to Google these days, if you're a content publisher you have to take most of what it says with a pinch of salt. Which is sad, because Google we used to love you. A lot.

Some people have dismissed the ACAP publishing standard (it basically allows website terms and conditions to be placed in machine-readable format so that publishers can have a say in how news aggregators and search engine companies use their content) as not being meaningful, or as our publisher put it, "shutting the gate after the horse has bolted".

And he has a point to a degree, but there is more than a principle at play here. How and what happens to content on the web today will affect how the business develops in the future. Google is a big part of that business and publishers need to do whatever they can to protect their content and ensure wherever possible that it is properly used.

The announcement by Schmidt has been welcomed by the World Association of Newspapers and the International Publishers Association.

Gavin O'Reilly, president of WAN and chairman of ACAP, said: "We are pleased that Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that they would be willing to implement ACAP if it were not for some technical incompatibility issues. As Mr. Schmidt knows, we have worked very closely with Google at a technical level throughout the past year in the ACAP project phase.

"Naturally, we are disappointed that we have yet to overcome their remaining technical barriers to implementation, but we have always stressed that we will do whatever is necessary to make ACAP work technically and seamlessly for all search engines. Our aspirations for ACAP have always been led by business needs and not by any preconceived technical solution."

This is not a Flake ad

If you've seen the Flake ad starring Joss Stone then you know true advertising horror, but don't worry it isn't really an ad. Joss says so, besides the whole thing came to her in a dream... or something. Take a look.
The ad, which is, as some of you have already pointed out in the Forums, too awful for words, seems to get worse everything time it airs.

As one put it, the spot actually looks like a spoof, but in a fearsome doublebluff it is revealed to be authentic. Scary.

Joss, whose popularity in the UK is, errrm, not what it used to be, has a great voice, no doubt about it, but when she breaks into "only the crumblest flakiest chocolate in the world" the world cringes. A lot.

Maybe because we all know how fake the moment is (rather than Flake) and she's been accused of being a huge phoney herself.



Now this supporting gem has appeared where Joss talks about her dreams and the fact that she dreamt about doing something with Cadbury's?! Who knows why people say shit, scientists have not been able to come up with an answer yet.

Still let's hope that Publicis, who have the account, think a little harder next time. Bring on the gorillas. The band.

Google the pusher frienemy

Google still isn't listening when it comes to content. The message is going out, but it isn't what Google wants to hear, even when some of the web's biggest content publishers are telling it loud and clear.
The issue is Automated Content Access Protocol or Acap, a system that allows content owners more control of their online content, controlling its distribution, use, and protection of copyright-protected content online.

Publishers want ACAP to be adopted as a universal standard with the likes of Reuters, AFP, Guardian News & Media, News Group, Independent News & Media already signed up.

When content is so readily available, it is essential that publishers can control what happens to it once web crawlers pick it up. This is what ACAP tackles, allowing publishers big and small to spell out access and use policies for search engines. Eventually it will apply across not just news, but all types of content.

But Google isn't interested. Questioned yesterday about its attitude to ACAP at the MediaGuardian.co.uk 'Changing Media Summit', Rob Jonas, Google's head of media and publishing, said that "the general view within the company" is that the current robots.txt, which govern what and what not a search engine spider can do, "provides everything most publishers need to do".

The charge on ACAP has been led by the World Association of Newspapers, which wants Google to respect the rights of content creators and embrace ACAP, but oddly enough Google (which is moving ever deeper into the world of content with video and deals with the likes of PA) doesn't seem to hear.

The problem with the current robot.txt standard is that it only allows publishers to accept or reject search engine spiders that are used to find content and re-purpose it on websites like Google News. But it does not allow publishers any options other than "yes" or "no". The new ACAP standard allows publishers more options.

Yesterday, ACAP chairman Gavin O'Reilly, who is also chairman of WAN and chief operating officer of Independent News & Media, spelt it out again and accused Google of acting in its own commercial self interest.

"It's strange for Google to be telling publishers what they should think about robots.txt, when publishers worldwide across the sector have already very clearly told Google that they disagree.

"If Google's reason for not supporting ACAP is that they think publishers should have a different view then we would ask Google to respect the fact that after considerable consideration and work we have identified not only the inadequacies of robots.txt but also come up with a practical and open solution. We call upon Google to adopt ACAP as soon as possible and respect the right of content owners to determine how their content is used."

Granted it has to act in some "commercial way", but not at the total expense of an industry that has come to rely on it, because that's the problem here. We're all too Google reliant and like any good pusher the search giant keeps us all dangling.

Branding your hospital: welcome to the Abercrombie & Fitch ER

If you're looking for somewhere to get those ab implants done, head to Columbus Children's Hospital in Ohio. It has just renamed its ER the Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center.It isn't the first time that the Columbus Children's Hospital has adopted a new moniker in gratitude to its corporate sponsors. Previously it changed its name to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, to acknowledge a $50m gift from Nationwide insurance.

Why would you even brand hospital? I'm stumped. Does the marketing director know what happens in these places? They have a body count. On the plus side the doctors and nurses are all extremely hot. Kidding. Sort of.

But the Nationwide deal wasn't the problem. It is the Abercrombie & Fitch one that has raised eyebrows after the group, also based in Ohio, made a $10m donation. That isn't a donation if you change the name of your ER, that's sponsorship.

According to a report in the New York Times, as diverse a collection of concerned parties including the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, leading pediatricians and the Parents for Ethical Marketing, is calling on the hospital to reconsider. The donation dates back to 2006, but ground is to be broken this year for the building to house the ER facilities.

"It is troubling that a children's hospital would name its emergency room after a company that routinely relies on highly sexualised marketing to target teens and pre-teens," the members of the coalition wrote in a letter that was sent on Tuesday to the hospital’s office in Columbus, Ohio.

"The Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center marries the Abercrombie brand to your reputation," said the letter, addressed to five senior officers of the hospital. "A company with a long history of undermining children’s well-being is now linked with healing."

They argue that naming the department after Abercrombie & Fitch ("get this boy down to A&F ricky tick …) sends a grievously wrong message. You think?

I mean what is A&F best know for? Provocative (read sexual) advertising for revealing clothing. And this is for a children's hospital. I think at this point I'll just say something like "is nothing sacred?" and mean it.

The glamour of blogs

The Observer devoted 19 pages of its magazine yesterday to blogs or to be more precise 'The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs'. It named Arianna Huffington's Huffington Post number one, but while the most glamorous woman in blogging took the top spot it was Nick Denton's Gawker empire that made the cover.
The Huffington Post is, of course, not like most blogs, it's bigger, better and well-funded. It also helped changed the view of blogs, showing that they didn't have to be one-man bands. They could have staff and columnists and thus blur the lines. It also helps if you have star pulling power and you can call on the likes of the late great Norman Mailer to blog for you.

Boing Boing, the geeky videos and liberal politics blog is number two and uber-technology blog Techcrunch is third. Designer and long-time blogger Jason Kottke's Kottke is fourth and another personal blogger Heather Armstong's Dooce follows.

At six, it might be a new blog, but it is one that so much has been written about. PerezHilton. It is the celebrity blog that launched in 2005 and has enjoyed a storm of publicity. Famously posting 60 times on the day that Lindsay Lohan was arrested for drink driving (I know the mind boggles…kind of) and has since led to a reality TV show on VH1.

The leading Brit comes in at ten and that is Nick Denton. Like the Huffington Post Gawker is a little different. Denton, of First Tuesday and Moreover fame, launched Gawker, a New York media blog back in 2002, and has since grown it into a mini-empire that runs to 15 blogs that now includes Valleywag, Wonkette and Jezebel.

It has had a few bumps in the road, but with just five blogs in 2004 the growth has been fast. And while Gawker might be the best known it is not the biggest. That is tech and gadget blog Gizmodo, which delivers around 50m page views a month helped by the fact that it is in nine countries including the UK where Denton has done a joint venture deal with IT publisher Incisive Media.

There are other Brit bloggers in there including Holy Moly and La Petite Anglaise and it is an entirely subjective list. For instance Matt Drudge and the Drudge Report only makes it to 11, but is arguably far more influential than some of those higher-placed. Not least because it made headlines (again) last week when breaking the Prince Harry in Afghanistan story.

It underlines how far blogging has come and how far there is yet to go. There are big spaces yet to be filled particularly if you look to areas where there are few blogs. It has shown itself as a real alternative to traditional news and traditional news set ups, its just that not everyone has yet realised this.

For the rest of the Top 50 visit the Observer, which also carries an extensive interview with Denton.

Is there any way to save Britney?

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Okay this morning at least as I read that Sky One plans a charmingly named documentary ' Britney: speared by the paps'. We love a pun around here, but hounded to the point of insanity seems closer to the mark.

The Sky One documentary promises to plunge "viewers into the heart of the paparazzi pack as cameras relentlessly follow Britney Spears' trail".

Apparently the show will reveal the "outrageous lengths the snappers go to in order to get their 'money' shot".

Britney Spears is an industry in herself and a very lucrative one at that. Incredibly she accounts for a staggering 20% of the entire paparazzi business. Worse still a single picture can be worth up to $500,000.

With such ludicrously high amounts of money on offer you can imagine the dirty tricks that they get up to as they hound the troubled star where ever she goes and no doubt add to the chaos that surrounds her.

It's almost the modern day equivalent of big game hunting and it appears that Britney is the head that every low-down snapper wants to bag, which only suggests that Britney should be protected and this carrion free for all should be somehow curtailed, but there is no regulation or control of the celebrity frenzy (that's right I am disgusted from Hammersmith) or the hyena like packs of snappers.

The Sky One programme shows some of the dirty tricks the photographers use to get their woman and how the paparazzi "work Britney".

Clearly some of the fault lies with her in that they know where she likes to go, but tabloid newspapers and magazines appear mostly to blame as they offer such ridiculously large sums of cash.

I have no idea if the paparazzi contributed to the death of Princess Diana (I'm inclined to think not), but it seems that they will pressure Spears towards some kind of messy end. She already appears to be living in oblivion.

The Sky One show is no innocent in all this either. I haven't seen it, but it is presented by a Heat editor (Boyd Hilton) and as well as revealing insights includes car crash interviews with celeb journalists who fuel the whole Britney story and former Britney lackeys who tell us more about the "shocking and unpredictable Britney story" such as Tony Barretto - Britney's ex-bodyguard "who tells all about the star's outrageous lifestyle".

Outrageous alright.

Britney: Speared By The Paps is a one-hour documentary and will be screened on Sky One and Sky One HD on Wednesday March 19 at 10pm.

The 'Red Phone' ad rings for Hillary Clinton

A slightly chilling but spot on ad dubbed the "red phone" ad, which asked Americans who they would they want to answer the phone ringing in the White House at 3am, is being credited with helping Hillary Clinton pull back in the Presidential race again.
"It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep, but there is a phone in the White House and it's ringing. Something is happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it is someone who already knows the world's leaders and knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world. It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep, who do you want answering the phone?"

Having spent weeks on the back foot as the media once again swung behind Democratic rival Barack Obama, Clinton has bounced back this week and looks this morning to have won the Democratic primary polls in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, as voters spoke and said loud and clear who they wanted to answer the phone.

There is a second vote in Texas yet to come -- the results of caucus meetings -- but it is again, as in New Hampshire, a significant turnaround for Clinton, although Obama did win something last night, taking Vermont.

It's true that Hillary Clinton trails with 16 states and 1,391 delegates compared with Obama's 24 states and 1,477 delegates, but the tide is turning and the race will go all the way to the wire and primaries in April.

The last week has been bad news for Obama, with allegations of double-talking over Nafta, saying one thing to voters and another to Canadians (I thought that always happened anyway?) and getting hit by a very effective ad campaign that asked the question that when it comes down to it, when something bad happens, who do you want to pick up the phone?

Watching some of the political ads, the speed with which they are produced, and how quickly opponents fire back is part and parcel of the US Presidential campaigns, but this time around, with the web playing such a role, that has been true as never before. These ads are everywhere.

Clinton's team made this spot for Texas, but that didn't matter, it was seen everywhere. Obama's team were, of course, at the plate in no time flat and swinging with the assurance that their response would make it out of the park.

The Obama spot called into question Clinton's solid support for the Iraq War and painted him as someone who had made all the right choices in identifying Afghanistan as the battle to fight, but it didn't cut it on the night.

Oddly enough, he is using the same language against Republican frontrunner and winner last night John McCain, which is a tactic that could well backfire.

Roger Alton at the Independent?

Much excitement in the office after hearing that the respected former Observer editor could be heading to the Independent to take over from Simon Kelner. The Independent is out of tricks and needs some new life and Alton could be the man to bring it.

Nothing is confirmed, but the story broken by MediaGuardian.co.uk sounds like it has the ring of truth. Alton seemed like an editor who was not ready to go and when he left Te Observer there was much talk and rumour of discord with Guardian editor and editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger.

They had clashed over stories about health and the Iraq war and Alton was also said to be unhappy about possible lost autonomy as The Observer and The Guardian were more closely integrated in their new home at Kings Cross.

He had concerns about The Observer losing its distinct voice as various departments are merged (sport/business and foreign news). It would be a crying shame if it did. The paper is distinct and it is that distinction that has helped it perform so well (under Guardian Media Group ownership it has to be said).

I love The Guardian as a newspaper and have always found The Independent lacking. Under Kelner (who if Alton does move to Canary Wharf, would become managing director) the paper has done a lot with little budget, but I look at its front pages some days and am not sure why I should pick it up. It lacks bite politically and has drifted to where I am not quite sure, other than being "liberal and worried".

Its front pages graphs and logos often make it look like a magazine and it feels like a trick that has been deployed once too often. I want a newspaper not a viewspaper.

I really hope this news turns out to be true and Alton does arrive and inject some of the newspaper magic he deployed at The Observer -- The Independent needs a little abracadabra.

Hopefully we will get less pages like this:

and more that tell us what is happening in the world. It's a big place after all. 

ITV1 and all the wrong choices

Here's a question: why, when ITV buys interesting-looking US shows, does it stick them away on ITV2 or ITV3 while running rubbish like the 'The Palace' on its flagship channel?

The ratings have been terrible for 'The Palace' as it finally ended its Monday night run last night and shuffled off the airwaves.

I caught it for five minutes at one stage and even in those scant minutes it was clearly terrible. There was probably a good idea in there (somewhere) and ITV was no doubt buoyed by the Dame Helen Mirren film success with the 'The Queen' (produced by ITV's film unit).

Over on ITV2, it has been plugging the Michelle Ryan vehicle 'Bionic Woman' quite heavily. The channel and the other digital stations are home to some pretty decent US imports such as 'Entourage' among others. Not that you would know.

The 'Bionic Woman' has not done brilliantly in the US, but it has improved and had some good reviews. It is unclear whether it will be picked up again for a second season (it was expensive to make, costing close to £3m per episode), but on the samples I have seen it is something that has the potential to pull in a bigger audience.

Is it just me or would even a one-off season with a capable, attractive and well-known English star (former 'EastEnders' actress) be better suited for primetime than 'The Palace'?

ITV should strive to make decent programming, but it should also open its primetime schedules up to quality US imports.

It never seems to. There seems a total unwillingness to experiment with running shows like this on its flagship channel that is instead home to flops like the 'The Palace', 'Thank God You're Here'. Not to mention 'Moving Wallpaper' and 'Echo Beach'.

UPDATE: I wrote this just over a week ago and I wanted to say I told you so. The 'Bionic Woman' pulled in 2.1m viwers. Great work. Haven't seen it, but while it has had mixed reviews it has had a number of positive ones as well from The Times, The Guardian and The Metro.

The show scored a number of positive review including one in The Times: "The new Bionic Woman (ITV2) is so much darker, more expensively made and, well, better. The new Jaime Sommers, played by our own Michelle Ryan from EastEnders, is brunette, a Hollywood signifier for intelligence." 

Its great that this has pulled in high numbers for digital channel ITV2, but it could have done much better on ITV1 with Michelle Ryan.

That said it seems to have made a better call on 'Pushing Daises' that stars another successful British export Anna Friel. The show has been a hit in the US and it is to air on ITV1 shortly.