ITV sets out response to coronavirus crisis
Carolyn McCall, ITVs CEO, today gave an overview of ITVs response to the coronavirus crisis:
This week has seen an escalation in the impact of the coronavirus with the Government ramping up measures and recommendations that are having profound implications for people and organisations across the UK.
All businesses are being deeply affected and ITV is no exception, but as a Public Service Broadcaster we remain committed to doing everything we can to continue to provide news, drama, entertainment and factual programmes to our viewers to keep them informed about this crisis and to offer them an escape from it.
The health of our own people and those who work with us remains our priority and we will implement the latest official guidance. I would like to thank everybody for the extra efforts being made in every team across ITV. We are also working closely with our partners in the industry to keep our shows on air.
Whatever happens, we will continue to broadcast our six channels, which, between them, offer hundreds of hours of content every week for free and accessible to everyone in the UK.
Kevin Lygo, ITV Director of Television, explained ITV's response in more detail:
News, Daytime and factual
As a public service broadcaster, ITV has a vitally important role to play in helping to provide the latest information, insight and guidance to viewers, told through trusted presenters and programmes. We've already seen significantly increased viewing of our news and live programming which demonstrates the public's need for fair, accurate and impartial news and information.
Our News teams across national and regional programmes are continuing to produce the highest quality journalism while our Daytime teams engage with viewers with their trademark flair and personality each day.
Between them they continue to broadcast around 10 hours of live news and discussion every weekday and provide a platform for the reporting and explaining of the changes to all of our lives that this crisis demands.
Their flexible and adaptive approach, supported by technology and our contingency plans will allow us to remain on air to provide this highly-valued, live service to viewers. As an illustration, if we couldn't broadcast News at Ten from London as we normally do we could do so from one of our regional centres.
Our live Daytime output continues to evolve and contingency plans in place would allow us to air from alternative locations and in more nimble ways - such as guests appearing remotely via other studios or Skype and FaceTime.
Today we are announcing a new, weekly Monday night show Coronavirus Report, produced by ITV News, that has been newly commissioned to give viewers an in-depth insight into issues affecting them during the current crisis.
We will continue to explore new ideas that will allow us to react to the world around and reflect that in our schedule in the weeks ahead.
Our schedule
Across our family of channels, our schedule remains robust, relying as it does on largely pre-recorded programmes - from our afternoon quiz shows like The Chase and Tenable to our evening dramas like Belgravia and Liar - and we are in a position to offer viewers a great deal of new shows in the coming weeks, particularly in peak time.
Across Drama, Entertainment and Factual Entertainment we have a fantastic mix of new and returning highlights set to air, such as Quiz, Honour, Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow, Gordon, Gino and Fred's Road Trip, Harry's Heroes: Euro having a laugh, Our Queen At War, Absolutely India: Mancs in Mumbai and The Sister.
However, with the spread of COVID-19 increasing, inevitably our ability to produce shows is being affected and shows will no longer be recorded with studio audiences. For example, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway will air this weekend without a live audience for the first time and we appreciate the huge efforts, across production, our on screen talent and commissioning, that have gone into making that happen.
The Voice UK knockouts, which are pre-recorded, will continue to be broadcast this weekend and the Britain's Got Talent audition shows are due to be broadcast in the next few weeks as planned.
We have, however, taken the difficult decision to postpone until later this year The Voice UK's live semi final and final, which were due on air on the 28th March and 4th April, and are working to replace them in the schedule with some bespoke Voice specials. We are also working with our production colleagues to see how we can make the BGT live shows work in an ever changing situation and we will update on this in due course.
It's clear that the over 70s will be most affected by the new medical advice. ITV already caters really well for this group - many of whom love our soaps and dramas. Most of this age group who rely solely on Free to Air TV aren't able to access online content services as they rarely have connected TVs. But our reach as a PSB means that all of them can access ITV3, which is the home of much loved dramas like Midsomer Murders, Foyle's War, Agatha Christie's Marple and Poirot.
And for our younger viewers, from next week onwards CITV will have a new-look morning schedule. The mornings will be full of much-loved animated series such as The Rubbish World of Dave Spud, Mr Magoo and Tom and Jerry. This will continue into the afternoons which will contain some of CITVs biggest shows such as Scooby Doo and Thunderbirds Are Go.
Our soaps
Coronation Street and Emmerdale are Britain's two most popular soaps with millions following both shows.
The continued transmission of both soaps is a priority for all of us at ITV and to our audiences who enjoy the shows.
The latest health advice from the Government and Public Health Engl
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
14/07/2025
The Royal Moroccan Air Force hosted a C-130 award ceremony with L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert a...
14/07/2025
UK launch set for September, following on from recent US and Germany releases
London - UK, July 14, 2025 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, da...
14/07/2025
SHENZHEN, China Telycam has added control options for its portfolio of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with a new plug-in for Elgato's Stream Deck family of con...
14/07/2025
The awards are open to IBC2025 show exhibitors and offer a valuable platform for companies to raise awareness for the new products and solutions they will be la...
14/07/2025
Clear-Com is excited to announce a significant expansion of the award-winning Arcadia Central Station with new software updates. Together, these releases dram...
14/07/2025
Grass Valley and Daktronics today announced a strategic technology partnership that unites Grass Valley's live production expertise with Daktronics' lea...
14/07/2025
Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset, and swXtch.io, provider of cloud-based multicast and reliable networking solutions, are partnering to deliver multicast...
14/07/2025
Tintri , a DDN subsidiary and leader in AI-powered data management solutions, today announces a game-changing and award-winning refresh to its global Partner P...
14/07/2025
HighField AI, the broadcast industry's first agentic and multimodal AI platform for automating graphics production, is now commercially available. Developed...
14/07/2025
Encompass Digital Media has today announced that it has been delivering a complex global services project for DAZN, the world s leading sports entertainment pla...
14/07/2025
MASV (massive.io), the fastest, most reliable large file transfer platform trusted by over 10,000 global organizations, announced today it will showcase its nex...
14/07/2025
Calrec is introducing a series of usability, customisation and system enhancements across the entire range of Argo consoles at IBC 2025, on Stand 8.C47. Look ou...
14/07/2025
Fincons Group, IT business consultancy and systems integrator company with more than 40 years of experience in the market, is proud to announce a new engagement...
14/07/2025
Stand 5.F45, IBC2025, Amsterdam, 12 15 September 2025 Intinor returns to IBC to present the latest updates to its Direkt series. A key development on show is ...
14/07/2025
Sony's New Coach's Headset Was Designed in Collaboration With the NFL Featuring a custom dynamic boom mic, the headset will debut in the fall By Dan Da...
14/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network's Marc Caiafa and Tom Guidice on th...
14/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix ISP Speed Index for June 2025
Product
14 July 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
One percent of Internet Service Providers (ISP...
14/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Begins Filming The Map of Longing With Al cia Falc , P...
14/07/2025
This July marks 100 days since I officially stepped into the role of CEO at Grass Valley, a milestone not of abrupt change, but of confident continuity.
Unlike...
14/07/2025
Enhancing Public Service Broadcasting with
Innovation, Accuracy & Sustainability
New regional detail and local towns featured...
13/07/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Expands B&B Universe' with Yu Jae Seok's B&B ...
13/07/2025
Live From MLB All-Star 2025: MLB Network Marks Five Straight Years of Onsite MLB...
12/07/2025
Ryan Coogler accepting the 2013 Vanguard Award. Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez.
Editor's Note: In honor of Fruitvale Station s 12th anniversary, we're d...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, the professional training division of Key Code Media, proudly announces a major update to its Adobe Premiere Pro Engineering and Advanced Op...
12/07/2025
Key Code Education, a leader in instructor-led post production training for over...
12/07/2025
As the death toll continues to mount, with at least 120 killed and more than 170 people still missing on July 10 from devastating Texas floods, a number of broa...
12/07/2025
EL SEGUNDO, Calif., and MIAMI -DirecTV and TelevisaUnivision have signed a deal that will make the ad-supported premium subscription tier of ViX, ViX Premium wi...
11/07/2025
PARK CITY, UTAH, July 11, 2025 - The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the 11 producers chosen for its annual Producers Labs, returning to Ucross Fou...
11/07/2025
If you've ever wondered what might be playing in Clark Kent's headphones...
11/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert and General Manager of L3Harris Waco facility Sean Ling held a ce...
11/07/2025
ARLINGTON, Va. WETA, the flagship public media station in the national capital area, has launched WETA+, a new streaming service tailored for the local Washingt...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission has emerged as one of the central players in the broadcast TV landscape in 2025, with its deregulatory policies sparking h...
11/07/2025
Calrec will introduce usability, customization and system enhancements across its entire range of Argo consoles during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Amsterda...
11/07/2025
LONDON Encompass Digital Media said it will support live and on-demand viewing of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup across multiple global regions for sports enterta...
11/07/2025
Two-thirds of broadcast engineers reaped the benefits of a pay raise within the last year....
11/07/2025
CARY, N.C. SmallHD has launched the Quantum 27, a new 26.5-inch Quantum-Dot OLED monitor designed to deliver postproduction image quality in a compact, set-frie...
11/07/2025
The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau and Tegna have entered into a consent decree that will settle an investigation into the accidenta...
11/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following news in early July that Paramount had settled President Donald Trump's lawsuit, Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Ben Ray Luj n (D-N...
11/07/2025
Model/Actriz Performs Lead Single Cinderella on The Late Show with Stephen Colbe...
11/07/2025
Behind the Mic: Amazon Prime Preps for First Season of NBA Action; MSG Networks ...
11/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Suite Studios' Craig Hering on Adapting to Client...
11/07/2025
2025 SVG Content Management Forum Breaks Down AI's Impact, Continued Transit...
11/07/2025
A Journey HOME: University of Nebraska's HuskerVision Goes IP Leaders from the HuskerVision and Lawo share their IP learnings By SVG Staff
Friday, July 1...
11/07/2025
CMSI, Remote Picture Labs, Ace ESPN's Cloud-Based Editing Efforts for Wimble...
11/07/2025
Netflix Enters the Live-Boxing-Production Ring for Round 2 With Historic Taylor-...
11/07/2025
Back to All News
Too Hot to Handle: Italy Is Coming on July 18 Only on Netflix
Entertainment
11 July 2025
GlobalItaly
Link copied to clipboard
July 11, 20...
ITV sets out response to coronavirus crisis
