Channel 4’s chief creative officer Jay Hunt said the BBC should think twice before scheduling Strictly Come Dancing against ITV’s The X Factor, saying the commercial network “really needs it to do well” this year.
Hunt, a former controller of BBC1, said ITV needed the ratings more than the BBC in the simmering feud between the two broadcasters over their Saturday night schedules.
Appearing at the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival on Friday, Hunt said: “I think ITV need The X Factor to do well this autumn, they really do. It’s a very expensive show for them.
“I don’t think the BBC should duck out of that head to head but I think aggressively trying to clip it is something they at least need to pause for a moment and think about it before they do it because it has an impact.”
The Channel 4 boss said the BBC was a £1bn broadcaster and there were “no consequences” for them if a programme didn’t work. “For Peter [Fincham, ITV director of television] as a commercial channel there is a real consequence and it’s about being aware of that impact.”
Hunt defended the decision to bring back TFI Friday for a full series, nearly 20 years after it first aired.
She said she had no plans to bring back another 90s Channel 4 classic, The Word.
Describing Chris Evans as a “dangerous broadcaster. I have been a huge fan of his for years, you never know what he is going to do”, she said the TFI revival had appealed to young viewers as well as old.
Of TV’s burgeoning appetite for nostalgia, Hunt said: “We have to be careful in this space. We think very carefully before we do it. We are there to innovate and change things.”
