Throng

ITV today announced three major new drama commissions for 2011, written and created by three of the UK’s leading screenwriters Peter Morgan, Anthony Horowitz and Sally Wainwright.

Injustice stars James Purefoy as William Travers, a criminal barrister who is recovering from a traumatic series of events that have shaken his belief in the legal system.  Injustice is Anthony Horowitz’s next project for ITV1 following the huge success of stripped drama Collision which screened to excellent reviews and ratings. 

Scott and Bailey will star Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp in the title roles of two homicide detectives from Greater Manchester Police’s prestigious Major Incident Team.  The series is scripted by Sally Wainwright whose drama Unforgiven won the coveted RTS Award for Best Drama earlier this year. 

This autumn, ITV1 launches a season of high quality drama, written by and starring, some of the UK’s biggest talents.  Led by Downton Abbey, from Oscar-winning writer, Julian Fellowes, a spectacular autumn season of new drama series and one-off films includes Bouquet of Barbed Wire, DCI Banks, The Little House, and the return of Whitechapel

As ITV continues to overhaul and refresh its schedule, the autumn also marks the launch of the channel’s new breakfast programme, Daybreak, presented by new signings Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley.

ITV1 is set to launch a brand new documentary strand bringing together powerful stories and unique insight into our world from a range of individual sources.

Perspectives will be the umbrella title encompassing single, factual films from a variety of film-makers and, on occasions, presenters, offering their take on subject matter ranging from life in Britain today to the arts.

Perspectives will begin in 2011 with a run of five documentaries including pieces from award-winning film-makers Brian Hill and Antony Thomas, who, respectively, tackle  Britain’s most common street-crime, mugging, and challenge perceptions of our country’s children, so often demonised in the daily news agenda.  

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - the best-selling book by Kate Summerscale about an infamous murder in a Victorian country house – has been adapted for ITV by Hat Trick Productions.  

The two hour drama will star Paddy Considine (Red Riding Trilogy, Dead Man’s Shoes, The Bourne Ultimatum, 24 Hour Party People, Hot Fuzz) in the lead role of Inspector Jonathan Whicher and will be adapted by Neil McKay (Mo, See No Evil: The Moors Murders).

Set in 1860, this gripping true story of murder, psychological suspense and courtroom drama begins when three-year-old Saville Kent is found brutally murdered and hidden down a servants’ privy in the grounds of the elegant Rode Hill House on the edge of a sleepy village on the Wiltshire / Somerset border.

ITV1's flagship daytime show This Morning returns with hosts PHILLIP SCHOFIELD and HOLLY WILLOUGHBY after their summer break to bring a host of exciting new content, talent and exclusive guests for the new series that starts September 6th.

It might be ‘back to school’ for most but no longer the new girl in class, Holly reveals what it was like starting her new job in front of millions last autumn. Holly said, “I can’t quite believe that it has been a year; it’s gone so quickly. I remember the first week was terrifying and then it got easier as the months went on. It’s lovely to come in and be part of a live show like this where you talk about anything and everything – if I wasn’t here, I’d be at home watching it.”

ITV today announced a deal to make the ITV Player available on Sony’s PlayStation®3 (PS3™) consoles by the end of 2010.

The deal, the first of its kind with a UK commercial broadcaster, will see the ITV Player made available to internet connected Sony PS3’s and is part of a wider strategy to roll out the highly successful ITV Player to platforms beyond itv.com - including games consoles, TV- and mobile- based devices.

Launched in July 2007 on itv.com, the ITV Player gives viewers the opportunity to catch up on favourite ITV programmes which they may have missed or want to watch again, up to 30 days from the original time of transmission.  In 2009, long and short-form video views on ITV.com, across all programme genres, more than doubled year-on-year reaching 200m.

Robin Pembrooke has been appointed as the new Managing Director of ITV.com, it was announced today (Tuesday).

Pembrooke joins from Global Radio where he spent three years as Group Director, Online and Interactive.  Prior to that, he was Director of Product Operations at Yahoo! Europe.

He will report to Fru Hazlitt, ITV’s Managing Director of Commercial and Online, who said:

“As we progress the transformational change plan, key priorities are to refocus and overhaul the site ensuring that users can quickly and easily engage with our content in a way that is appropriate to the platform.

“ITV.com should be about extending exclusive content, video on demand and monetisation both through the business of advertising and directly from the consumer.  It is also vital that we identify the right distribution strategy for the ITV player and effectively integrate the product where appropriate.

MGM Worldwide Television has signed a multi-year renewal agreement with ITV for the James Bond movie franchise.

The deal will keep the most successful film franchise of all time on ITV and its family of channels for several years and is highlighted by the free television premiere of Quantum of Solace, which continues the high octane adventures of the famous spy played by Daniel Craig.

The announcement was made today by Gary Marenzi, Co-President, MGM Worldwide Television.

As part of the agreement, for the first time in the UK marketplace, all the Bond films, including Casino Royale, Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Dr. No, GoldenEye, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, License to Kill and Diamonds are Forever, will be shown in high definition on ITV1 HD across its 2010 and 2011 schedules.

ITV today announces two new creative talents set to join the award winning daytime team from this September.

Creative Director of Big Brother, SHARON POWERS, is set to join Loose Women as Executive Producer. Sharon has overseen the creative development of Big Brother at Endemol UK for the last six years; prior to this she was Commissioning Editor for Factual Entertainment at Channel 4.

Leopard Films’ Executive Producer, MILES JARVIS will join ITV Daytime as Development Executive working across the daytime brands.  Miles has spent six years at Leopard Films creating a number of series for BBC1 and ITV1 including Missing Live, Evacuees Reunited and Crash Scene Investigators.

Sharon said: “I am thrilled to be joining Loose Women and am looking forward to working with the team behind one of Britain’s best daytime programmes.”

In her first television interview eight months after her alleged affair with John Terry became front page news – Vanessa Perroncel told GMTV it never happened.

Speaking to GMTV’s Kate Garraway, Perroncel opened up about the media speculation that surrounded her friendship with John Terry.

Asked to define the nature of her relationship with Terry, Perroncel replied: “Friends, we were friends. That’s what we were.”

When asked directly whether she had had an affair with Terry, Perroncel replied: “No, I think I made that clear. I denied that from the start but people didn’t want to hear. I’ve never said, ‘Oh yes, I’ve had an affair with John Terry,’ I said, ‘No, he was my friend.’”

Asked if Terry’s wife Toni believed her, the former partner of England player, Wayne Bridge, replied: “Yes, I believe she did, yes.”

New episodes of ITV’s crime drama VERA starring Brenda Blethyn have gone into production in Northumberland. Guest stars Hugo Speer (Five Days, Sorted, Full Monty), Gary Lewis (Mo, Billy Elliott) and Lolita Chakrabarti (Silent Witness, Fortysomething, The Bill) join Brenda in Telling Tales, the second of four self contained films.

Set around the Northumberland coast, the second film follows DI Vera Stanhope (Brenda Blethyn) as she sets out to retrospectively resolve the mystery of Abigail Mantel’s (Amber Britton-Dyer) murder.

In a brand new series for ITV1 Ray Mears takes viewers on an incredible, eye-opening journey across Britain.

Wild Britain With Ray Mears sees the wildlife expert uncover some of our finest habitats and rejoice in our fascinating wildlife, showing viewers how we can all find our own relationship with the wild, in places close to our homes.

The series is a co-production between ITV Studios and leading multi-channel broadcaster UKTV.  A 6x30 version will be shown first on ITV1 in autumn, to be followed in 2011 by extended 60 minute episodes with exclusive additional content to be broadcast on UKTV’s natural history channel Eden.

Each episode of the series is themed around a different habitat: Deciduous Woodland, Heathland, Meadows and Farmland, Wetlands, Shingle Shore and Moorland.

Three couples hit the road for mad-cap jaunt from London to Monte Carlo in a brand-new series for ITV1.

Pairing up to embark on this travel adventure are Jack Dee and Ade Edmondson, in a VW camper van, Jodie Kidd and Julian Clary, in a Bentley convertible and Penny Smith and Rory McGrath, in a union jack bedecked Mini Cooper.

The 3x60 series is a co-production between ITV Studios and Modern Television, and was commissioned by Jo Clinton-Davis, ITV Controller of Popular Factual and Alison Sharman, ITV Director of Factual and Daytime.  Modern Television’s credits include two series of Greatest Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones for ITV1, Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones for BBC One and Ian Fleming: Where Bond Began, presented by Joanna Lumley for BBC One.

Rugby World Cup Limited (RWCL) has announced today that, subject to contract, ITV has been awarded the UK Broadcast rights for Rugby World Cup 2011 in New Zealand and Host Broadcast rights for Rugby World Cup 2015 in England.

The announcement follows a rigorous process managed by RWCL’s exclusive commercial agents IMG throughout June and July during which five parties submitted bids in response to the tender and subsequent shortlist process for the UK broadcast rights.

Under the terms of the new deal, ITV will broadcast live coverage of every match from the 2011 tournament in New Zealand and the 2015 tournament in England. All matches will also be shown online at ITV.com with the deal also encompassing highlights and clips packages on television, online and mobile.

The nation’s favourite and longest running soap is trading its famous cobbles for the boards with a new comedy written by Jonathan Harvey.

Corrie! which opens at The Lowry, Salford, from 12th August, is a brand new comedy written by acclaimed playwright and long-term Coronation Street scriptwriter Jonathan Harvey.  The play, written to celebrate the soap’s 50th anniversary, condenses five decades of much-loved storylines and characters into one hilarious two-hour show.

It was announced today that Former Coronation Street star Charles Lawson will tread the boards as narrator for the theatre production.