Though I have little time for the vast amount of ITV’s output, there have been some good progs on the network – e.g The South Bank Show, far better than BBC’s Imagine (though I like Yentob). It was the longest running arts programme on British TV (1978-2009).
Even the usually execrable Sky and its bullish, brash advertising and willingness to broadcast some awful drivel, manages to have two arts channels, often far better than BBC4 and its eternal repetition of limited content.
I mean, even Channel 5 (pre Desmond), a channel born out of a manifesto of “Three Fs: football, films and fornication”, managed to have a series presented by Brian Sewell on religuious pilgrimage (The Naked Pilgrim).
So, to say that ITV is worthless, valueless and pointless misses some of the good it has achieved. TV should be educational AND entertaining. If the masses are happy to be entertained with the visual equivalent of soma from (what Michael Franti called) the cathode ray nipple, let them. The rest of us can do as we used to be instructed by Why Don’t You.