ITV Gets Ready To Play To Interactive Audience

ITV would consider launching a gambling channel and forming a teleshopping partnership as it tries to build on its new viewer-participation gameshow channel, ITV Play.

The commercial broadcaster indicated yesterday that it was keen to develop new revenue streams to lessen its dependance on the main ITV1 channel, including embracing the output of specialist broadcasters.

Jeff Henry, who runs ITV's new consumer division, said that he "wouldn't rule out launching a gambling channel in the future" and that the broadcaster was "looking for the right partner" to see if it could develop a teleshopping service.

While casino gaming for television viewers is not legal at present, ITV is hoping that the Government will relax this restriction in its forthcoming reform of gaming laws.

In addition, the broadcaster's teleshopping ambitions would be boosted if it was allowed to sell merchandise promoted on one of its flagship shows, such as clothes worn in Footballers' Wives.

To do that would require the European Union and Ofcom, the regulator, to permit product placement in programming, a reform widely expected over the next two years.

Mr Henry said that he believed ITV could make a success of gambling and teleshopping because it is able to cross-promote via the mass audiences it generates on ITV1. But the broadcaster would not expect to invest more heavily in raising the quality of teleshopping in particular.

"Why add in the cost of better production values if that's not what the audience wanted," Mr Henry said.

The executive - named by the chief executive Charles Allen as a possible future leader of the company - was speaking before the launch today of ITV Play, which aims to generate £20 million in profit in its first year of operation through its gameshows.

ITV Play, which will run on Freeview, and from July on Sky, will run between noon and 4am. Viewers will be asked to answer on-air questions from home at a cost of a 60p phone call - of which ITV keeps half for itself. The prizes available range from £1,000 to £25,000.

A trial of the genre, built around the programme Quizmania, has been running in the small hours on ITV1 since late last year. In January alone it generated £2 million of operating profit.

ITV Play will feature the first ITV programme that exploits Friends Reunited, the popular schools reunion website acquired by the broadcaster last December. Friends Reunited: The School Run will bring together old classmates to test their knowledge of trivia from a given year.

Charles Allen has set a target that ITV should generate 50 per cent of its revenues from outside ITV1 by 2010. Mr Henry's consumer division - which includes the company's internet and interactive activities - is charged specifically with achieving £500 million in annual revenue by that deadline.

Mr Henry said that internet traffic "had increased 50 per cent" at Friends since the acquisition, partly helped by the website's sponsorship of Soapstar Superstar. He added that he hoped that the website's management "would achieve their earn-out" by trebling profits to £18 million in three years.