ITV’s Managing Director of Media and Entertainment, Kevin Lygo, today announced a bumper spring schedule for the network including:

● Big TV events coming up - The UEFA Euro 2021 Championships and the return of Love Island

● New dramas starring critically-acclaimed actors Noel Clarke (Viewpoint), Denise Gough, Emily Watson (Too Close) John Simm (Grace) and Katherine Kelly (Innocent)

● Brand new entertainment shows featuring Ian Wright (Moneyball) Vernon Kay (Game of Talents) and the announcement that Oti Mabuse will be joining the judging panel for The Masked Dancer

● Factual titles lead by Ross Kemp and Kate Garraway

Kevin Lygo said,

“There’s so much to look forward to on ITV this spring and into summer, with the Euros and the return of Love Island, but much more besides.

Brilliant drama production teams have worked in the most challenging production conditions to bring these very different but equally strong series to air.

The entertainment team at ITV are thrilled to be bringing three brand new series to viewers this spring with Vernon fresh out of the castle hosting Game of Talents, Ian Wright at the helm of Moneyball and Oti Mabuse joining the panel of The Masked Dancer.

In Factual, Kate Garraway will open up about the challenging year for her family, and Ross Kemp is on the trail of Britain’s tiger kings.

What a year it’s been, and Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald will reflect on that in his film, 2020: The Story Of Us (w/t).

And we’re building on the success of Ant and Dec’s DNA Journey with three more films featuring celebrity pairings, looking into their past.

It’s been a great start to the year for ITV, We’ve had four out of the top six biggest drama launches of the year, led by The Pembrokeshire Murders. This had an amazing audience of over 12m viewers per episode, across platforms and transmissions over 28 days.

The Bay, Finding Alice, Marcella and most recently McDonald and Dodds and Unforgotten have been highlights for us too, and these shows have helped us secure what is our best start to the year ever, in terms of drama viewing on ITV Hub.

ITV is and will always be the home of big entertainment shows, we’ve had over 10 million viewers tuning in to The Masked Singer, and over 8 million watching Saturday Night Takeaway when it returned last month.

And all of this brilliant entertainment and drama helps make us the most watched channel for 16-34s audiences - both across 2020, and this year to date, too.

And outside of entertainment and drama we've had some terrific factual shows like Long Lost Family which has achieved its best ratings since 2017, Joanna Lumley's Home Sweet Home -Travels in My Own Land which is her biggest show for us in five years, and of course Breaking Dad with Bradley and Barney, which opened with nearly 6 million viewers.

It’s almost a year since the lockdown was announced and during that time ITV’s News and Daytime teams have worked tirelessly in challenging circumstances to bring ten hours of live TV to our schedule every weekday, and deservedly, for Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, This Morning, Loose Women, ITV National and ITV Regional news, audiences are up across the board.

And our brilliant soaps, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, have continued to film on a weekly basis, providing us with new episodes throughout the pandemic which has been hugely advantageous to ITV and our viewers.”

ITV also gave details of exciting, in productions commissions, including:

● The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe from Unforgotten writer Chris Lang, on the story of John Darwin who faked his own death to claim his life insurance.

● Atmospheric espionage thriller, The Ipcress File starring Joe Cole as iconic spy Harry Palmer, as well as Lucy Boynton and Tom Hollander, adapted by Oscar nominated writer John Hodge and directed by Emmy award winner James Watkins.

● The three-part sequel to the ground breaking single film The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, Stephen, is in production from the same team who produced the original drama. Sharlene Whyte will play Doreen Lawrence, whilst Steve Coogan is Clive Driscoll and Hugh Quarshie reprises his role from the original film as Neville Lawrence. Alrick Riley is directing the drama and Madonna Baptiste producing.

● Hitchcockian thriller Angela Black, starring Joanne Froggatt, Michiel Huisman and Samuel Adewunmi.

And new commissions announced today include:

● The Void; a brand new, high octane, Saturday night game show that sees contestants put themselves to the test to take on a wide range of demanding mental and physical challenges - all whilst dangling at terrifying heights over ‘The Void’

● Ready to Mingle; coming to ITV2 this Autumn,a brand-new dating game show that will follow a single girl in her search for a perfect partner, as 12 male suitors compete for her affections and the chance to win a big money prize

● Starstruck, an exciting new format in which ordinary members of the public with an exceptional talent team up and transform into some of the world’s biggest music icons

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Notes to Editors

● The Masked Singer is the most watched programme of the year outside of news and sport

● Thanks to the success of The Masked Singer, and Saturday Night Takeaway, ITV has been the most watched channel for all audiences and for 16-34s every Saturday so far in 2021

● ITV has had 4 out of the top 6 drama launches so far in 2021 for Pembrokeshire Murders, The Bay, Unforgotten, Finding Alice

● Pembrokeshire Murders is the most watched drama of 2021 with an average of 12.1m viewers across transmissions and devices across 28 days.

● ITV’s drama drops (the full series of The Bay, Marcella and Finding Alice were made available from the start of the series) have helped ITV Hub to its most successful start to the year ever for drama, with a total of 75 million programme streams of drama to date in 2021.