ITV's boss talks Jeremy Kyle, Love Island and the future

The last time a law was passed determining how prominently the likes of ITV were displayed on the electronic programming guide (EPG), Facebook was still called FaceMash.

That was 2003. Quite a bit has happened to media since - but the law hasn't kept pace. And that issue - prominence - has become critically important for Britain's public service broadcasters.

Every industry has its jargon; and the creative industries are more creative than most in their production of it.

Just as the word "talent" means something very different in media circles from what it means in your local pub, so the word "prominence" has come to have enormous importance for Britain's public service broadcasters.

It does matter. Essentially, when you switch on your TV you're met with that EPG.

The 2003 Communications Act required the EPG, by law, to give due prominence to Britain's public service broadcasters - the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

But these days, your viewing is increasingly through platforms controlled from California. The EPG matters much less than it used to.

And there is a consensus among UK broadcasters that unless companies like Apple and Amazon are forced, through primary legislation, to give greater prominence to the likes of ITV on their platforms, viewing figures will fall further, and fast.

They are campaigning hard for it. In an interview with The Media Show on BBC Radio 4, Dame Carolyn McCall issued a direct warning to No 10: fail to protect Britain's public service broadcasters through greater prominence, and they will go the way of most local newspapers, which are facing terminal decline.

In a wide-ranging interview, McCall spoke about the challenge of managing a national institution in an era of culture wars, why Britbox was a risk worth taking, and why transforming the digital prospects of ITV is what attracted her to a job she wasn't initially looking for.

The Jeremy Kyle Show was taken off air after the death of a contributor

She also said that ITV were looking at scrapping The Jeremy Kyle Show even before the death of a participant. And she said that she doesn't know of any current, active discussions to bring Kyle back to the network.

On hit show Love Island, McCall said that the broadcaster was determined that it should be back on air as soon as possible, but that the pandemic made production very hard.

This week, a social media campaign has encouraged advertisers to boycott GB News, the forthcoming news channel. McCall said she disagreed with the aims of this campaign; that it is an example of "cancel culture"; and that she welcomes GB News on grounds of plurality.

If you're interested in issues such as these, you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram; and subscribe to The Media Show podcast from BBC Radio 4.