There are more channels, but less to see as TV bosses stick to tried and tested formulae and give us more of what they know we like.

It's official - television offers the same old thing night in, night out. More channels doesn't necessarily mean more choice, just more of the same. This will come as no surprise to anyone who watches TV on a regular basis. What's different is that the admission has been made by a representative of one of the major players, ITV.

David Bergg, the network's Director of Strategy, told a media convention that the increase in soaps, established drama series and game shows was squeezing out new ideas.

"We're all playing it safe. We're maximising things that work," he said.

The debut at the weekend of The Royal, a spin-off from one of ITV's biggest drama hits Heartbeat, is proof that programme-makers prefer not to take risks. This is a new series composed of tried and tested ideas. The nostalgic medical drama's links with Heartbeat, which extends to actors from that series crossing over to the spin-off, mean that the audience doesn't have to be educated to accept something new. It has a built-in familiarity factor.

The easiest way to get ratings is to copy something successful. The Royal is foolproof TV. It can't go wrong. If the ratings are good, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be, more episodes will be commissioned. Heartbeat and The Royal could be run in the Sunday early evening, feelgood slot until kingdom come.

The BBC already does it. Casualty, which runs nine months of the year, gave birth to Holby City, which now runs all year round. The afternoon medical soap Doctors proved so successful the series is to play 12 months of the year. BBC1's Mersey Beat was a bid to find a police series to rival ITV's The Bill, which also has two or three episodes each week every week of the year.

ITV's research showed that the number of different programmes on each of the main terrestrial channels had dropped considerably in the past year. There's less room for new programmes in schedules crowded with soaps and running dramas.

Longer runs mean a narrowing in the range of programmes. The fourth weekly episode of EastEnders as well as Holby City and long series of makeover shows are to blame on BBC1. ITV had less room once Emmerdale went five times a week and a turnround in The Bill's fortunes made it a ratings certainty again.

The figures in the new research indicate an increase of 40 per cent in the number of soaps and long-running series on BBC1. Soaps on ITV have risen by a fifth. This has been at the expense of current affairs and arts programmes, with one-off events and issue-based programmes ditched to make way for reality shows and series.

The survey of "unique programme titles" over the past decade saw BBC2 doing worst of all, with a drop of 40 per cent. Long runs of the quiz show The Weakest Link was one of the reasons for lack of air time for new series.

Original programmes on Channel 4 fell by 26 per cent, on ITV1 by 15 per cent, and on BBC1 by ten per cent.

Bergg's blast follows criticism last summer from Paul Bolt, director of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, who was worried that the BBC wasn't cutting edge enough, putting ratings before innovation.

The BBC's head of drama series, Mal Young, responded by saying that seven million viewers - of Holby City and Mersey Beat - couldn't be wrong.

That's a valid point. If viewers didn't like these series, and the soaps, they wouldn't watch them. Showing Emmerdale five days a week and adding extra episodes of Coronation Street and EastEnders have done nothing to diminish the audience's appetite for them.

ITV has already "freshened up" its catalogue of long-running series. Some runs were shortened, others killed off. The main casualty was Peak Practice, axed last year after ten years on screen.

Fewer episodes of London's Burning were ordered, with the veiled threat that if audiences didn't increase, the axe would fall on the firefighters' series that's been around since 1986. The considerably younger Where The Heart Is was another that came under scrutiny, although a new series is currently in production in Yorkshire.

The BBC has a reputation for persevering with new series, often commissioning a second series even if the first doesn't catch on. Executives must remember that Only Fools And Horses wasn't an instant success. It took several series before the public warmed to Del Boy's dodgy comic adventures.

ITV is less willing to take chances because of the need to keep advertisers happy. Occasionally they do take a gamble. The first series of Footballers' Wives achieved only moderate ratings, not enough to justify a second series. But word-of-mouth and publicity surrounding it convinced ITV bosses to go ahead with a second. They were rewarded with the opening episode gaining the series' highest-ever ratings.

Published: 25/01/2003