ITV celebrates Channel of the Year triumph

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Strong slate of programmes including Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and Trauma help channel see off rivals

ITV has been crowned Channel of the Year at the 2019 Broadcast Awards, beating all four terrestrial rivals and BBC3 to the top prize.

The award, last won by the commercial PSB in 2014, cemented a strong year for ITV, in which an 8% growth in seven-day consolidated share helped it overtake BBC1 for the first time since 2010.

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Judges pointed to the success of dramas including Innocent, Trauma, Unforgotten and Vera, and the successful revivals of Dancing On Ice and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

The win was accompanied by a clutch of awards for the broadcaster. Ant And Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway shrugged off the loss of Ant in its latter stages to win its third Best Entertainment Programme award, while Best Popular Factual Programme went to Spun Gold’s “celebratory tear-jerker” The Real Full Monty: Ladies Night. Coronation Street was named Best Soap or Continuing Drama.

Meanwhile, veteran ITV news and documentary presenter Sir Trevor McDonald won this year’s Special Recognition award.

ITV Studios-owned World Productions was named Best Independent Production Company, capping a year in which it enjoyed critical and ratings success for Sky Atlantic’s Save Me and BBC1’s Bodyguard.

A Very English Scandal

However, both series were eclipsed by Blueprint Pictures’ BBC1 three-parter A Very English Scandal in the Best Drama Series or Serial category.

Channel 4 cleaned up in the factual categories with awards for Spring Films’ Prison (Best Documentary Series), Mongoose Pictures’ The Fight For Mosul (Best Documentary Programme), C4 News: Cambridge Analytica Uncovered (Best News or Current Affairs Programme) and Storyvault Films’ single The Football Club: Artist In Residence (Best Specialist Factual Programme).

The broadcaster also took home the Best Original Programme gong for Brinkworth Films’ Married To A Paedophile and Best Comedy Programme for Hat Trick’s Derry Girls.

Harry Hill presided over the annual event, which took place at London’s Grosvenor House on Wednesday 6 February.