Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} One by Nigel Pickard One by Nigel Pickard. Nigel Pickard, currently the BBC's controller of children's programmes, will replace David Liddiment as ITV director of programmes. His new position is a vital one at the ITV network, which is currently undergoing a crippling advertising slump and has also seen ratings fall. He will be in charge of spending �825m on programmes in 2003 - an increase of �50m since 2001. His surprise appointment comes as the two main ITV broadcasters, Granada and Carlton, forge ahead with plans to create a stronger, single ITV company. Mr Pickard has spent most of his career making children's shows for commercial companies, and there may be concerns that his lack of experience in drama could cause a problem. His BBC stint also saw him axe BBC One's Saturday morning show Live and Kicking, which was comprehensively outperformed by ITV's SM:tv - a show he commissioned while at the commercial network. Mr Pickard was head of children's and youth programmes at ITV from 1998, and steered its children's output to the dominant position in the ratings for the first time in 13 years. Mr Pickard said his new appointment came at an "extremely exciting" time for ITV and offered enormous opportunities for the future. "I look forward to taking up the challenge of maintaining ITV's unique position in the UK market and to developing the strength of its channel portfolio." Mick Desmond, joint managing director of ITV, hailed the move as a "great appointment" for ITV. "He has a wealth of experience in commercial broadcasting plus a successful track record in both children's and multi-channel television, two of the most competitive areas of the business," he said. David Liddiment, who has been a fierce critic of the BBC, leaves ITV at the end of 2002. ITV bosses will hope news of his replacement will reassure advertisers that the channel can fight back in the ratings battle. One by Nigel Pickard. If you want to get to the top in television today, you could do worse than start in children's programmes. Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC One, Dawn Airey, the chief executive of Five (soon to join BSkyB in a senior programming role) and now Nigel Pickard, the new director of programmes at ITV, have all spent significant periods producing or commissioning children's programmes. Indeed Nigel Pickard has spent virtually his entire career making programmes for kids. Once, he was at long-gone ITV companies Southern and TVS, where he worked on shows like Worzel Gummidge. Then he was at Scottish Television, where he was controller of entertainment and drama features - responsible among others for the Saturday morning shows What's Up Doc and Wolf It. Two years ago the BBC lured him to run its children's department, where he has been responsible not only for stalwarts of the schedule like Blue Peter and Teletubbies but also for the launch earlier this year of two new channels aimed at children and toddlers, CBBC and CBeebies. It may be tempting for grown ups to write off children's telly as somehow less serious than the adult kind. It's also the widest ranging: children's commissioning editors have to know about drama, entertainment, factual programmes, the lot. This background helps to explain why ITV turned to Nigel Pickard two weeks ago after Dawn Airey spurned the network's offer of a post as chief executive in favour of Sky. But for all his experience - and his reputation as a thoroughly nice bloke - Pickard is not the charismatic leader that Airey would have been, and that the network said it was looking for until very recently. Too many chiefs. When Carlton and Granada merge ITV will have too many chief executives as it stands; to have acquired yet another corporate figurehead running the ITV Network would have made life awfully difficult. The word from ITV is that Pickard will work as part of a triumvirate at the network with the head of marketing, Jim Hytner, and scheduling boss David Bergg. He will lead an established team of commissioning editors, though one or two might jump ship if they feel aggrieved at being overlooked in favour of Pickard. Pickard is a quieter character altogether. ITV's hope is that the network has acquired a safe pair of hands who will bolster the schedule - and prove strong enough to resist any attempts by Carlton or Granada to get him to favour programmes produced in-house over those produced by independent producers if the outsiders' proposals are better. His timing may be good. ITV has had a dreadful couple of years in which its audience share has fallen below BBC One's for the first time ever, thanks to programming disappointments and disasters like the scheduling of The Premiership and the failure of Survivor. But there is still cause for alarm. Coronation Street's ratings have slipped badly. Audiences have been deserting ITV's Formula One coverage. And there is no prospect of a let-up in the competitive pressure from a resurgent BBC, an increasingly successful Five and, above all, from the digital channels which more and more of us can now watch. Nigel Pickard will need all the skills honed on shows like SM:tv to keep ITV buoyant. Nigel Pickard fights back. That's a very simplistic way of looking at it, as if to say that no other channel is allowed to have high rating programmes. It's the way that if BBC1 or Channel 4 have a popular programme, the ITV1 programme as a result is therefore unpopular and is therefore axed that I just can't understand. If every programme that doesn't win it's slot is a flop, which it seems to be according to the likes of Media Guardian then surely every channel may as well close down and be replaced by one single channel. Surely even in the 70s, BBC1 lost out to half of the time to ITV and vica versa yet shows wern't announced as a flop straightaway. Yes it appears to be true, I read it on teletext. Although its a bit soon to pull programmes after 1 or 2 episodes ITV cannot afford to have dead wood in the schedule these days due to some much competition from digital channels. What makes me smile is that every time ITV pulls a failure from it's schedules - it comissions another thinking "it'll be different this time." It'll Be Alright On The Night - how apt - they certainly can't put out of a night's worth of "alright" programming. But with only one commercial broadcaster at the time, advertisers paid for their spots without question. That's why an ITV franchise really was a, "licence to print money". Apologies if this sounds patronising, but there *is* a very simplistic formula at work here. The cash raised in advertising slots slides in accordance with how many viewers tune in. As much as I hate the practice it probably makes more business sense to pull a low rater and replace it than lose the peak revenues over the run of the series. Many programmes simply don't capture their audiences on the first few installments, and it's a shame that some babies may get thrown out with the bath-water. But that's showbusiness. It also happened in ITV's 49th year as well. In fact replace Celebrity Love Island with Simply the Best and you could just rerun all of last year's posts. I'm sure they'll be back on top with dramas every night of the week come September. I really don't know what future this is leading to where ITV introduce a new series against a strong BBC1 soap, it doesn't beat it, which was not unexpected and then ends up getting pulled after 1 episode. There's something wrong here. I'm not sure it's about the 8pm shows beating Holby, that wouldn't be expected. ITV seem to be bothered a lot more about audience inheritance these days. And fact is, the 8pm shows didn't deliver into Bad Girls, which was relegated into 3rd place last night, and is usually one of their stronger shows. That, I think is more alarming. What I find particularly strange is the number of errors ITV perceives itself to be making, then answering this problem by shelving entire series (at considerable expense) rather than finding other positions in the schedule for them. By doing this, they're creating a rod for their own back, because this will just encourage lazy hacks to pick out any flagging series, in the full knowledge that ITV will probably can that as well, thereby leading to even more bad press. I think ITV will come to rue the day they gave away their trump card in this game, namely to test new concepts cheaply in regions before pushing them out nationwide. Now more than ever this would have been a very powerful tool. I've said this before but the main problem with ITV is they are reliant on short-term ratings boosts such as stripping a series of I'm a Celebrity, or a cheap rip-off, every night for a couple of weeks, or screening one-off drama premieres. What they need is more shows that can consistantly pull in the ratings on a week in, week out basis, alongside Corrie, Emmerdale and The Bill. That means longer drama series, more comedy, especially in primetime - and some new entertainment formats. People are sick of celebrity based reality shows - especially those where the only reason the contestants are "celebs" is too appear on such shows. Real people work better for ITV - shows like Bad Lads Army and Survivor have a far stronger format, and in the long term will be more successful. I think the resurrection of Survivor could show that ITV can do reailty shows well - and I know many reality fans have a high regard for Survivor - as long as it's original format remains intact, and ITV don't try to turn it into a money spinning version of Big Brother. It's more pitiful when you consider the iconic programmes Nigel used to work on, such as Worzel Gummidge. But perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on him. After all, he is only the lapdog dancing to Charles Allen's tune. Quite the reverse, according to Teletext. CLI beat Big Borether in the ratings. And tonight ITV performs its favourite party trick, dropping The Real Good Life and Fat Families without even a week's grace for anyone who tunes in. I doubt anyone here will miss either - but my thoughts go out to those who endured months of Nightscreen plugging The Real Good Life! Seriously, it's this habit of impulse rescheduling which lets down viewers, programme makers and ultimately, ITV themselves. If only broadcasters were required to explain on air such changes: "Now on ITV1 a change to our published schedules. In place of The Real Good Life and Fat Families which were not performing well in the ratings, Denis Norden once again promises It'll Be Alright On The Night" . One by Nigel Pickard. 7W-2, NC13993 - Built 11/30/1936. First sold to A.D. Olson Drilling Co. of OK. Was impressed into USAAF service from 1942-44. The only Executive with stick controls. Sitting and not flown. On static display at Pioneer Airport, Oshkosh, WI - this is not the original Mrs. Mennen (S/N 34 is the real one) but is painted as Mrs. Mennen. 7W-6, NC17601 (N2LL) - Built 4/30/1937. First sold to Lee Drilling Co. of OK. Registered to John Okeefe in Washington state. Maintained in flying condition. Flown to Airventure 2016. 7W-7, NC17602 - Built 5/30/1937. Originally sold/loaned for use in President Roosevelt's 1937 Infantile Paralysis campaign, named "New Hope." Later sold to Claude Drilling Co. of OK. Crashed landed in Alaska 1944. Stored outside for many years at museum in Anchorage. Moved to inside storage. 7W-10, NC17605 - Built 11/1/1937. Remained in company inventory for over a year then sold to Bodine Drilling Co. of KS. Flown by Arlene Davis in 1939 Bendix Trophy at 196 MPH! AAF serial number 42-68361 worn during war time service. Registered to James Turrell, Flagstaff, Arizona. 7W-11, N20200 - Built 9/7/1937. Sold to Halliburton in Duncan, OK. AAF serial number 42-43846 worn during war time service. Restored and flown by Steve Marini of California for many years. Damaged in landing accident in July 2016. In storage with Robert Buzzell, Madison, WI. 7W-12, NC17613 - Built 11/15/1937. Sold first to American Manufacturing Co. of TX. AAF serial number 42-38265 worn during war time service. Registered to Sterling Aviation, Lexington, Kentucky. Flown regularly and displayed at Airventure 2018. Sold to new owner in Europe in Fall 2020. To fly to Europe 2021. 7W-13, NC13PH (NC17614) - Built 11/14/1937. First sold to Standard Oil Co. of OH. AAF serial number 42-38269 worn during war time service. Registered to Thomas “Pat” Hartness of Greenville, SC. Based at Triple Tree Aerodrome in SC. Flown to Sun N Fun airshow in 2018. 7W-14, NC17615 (N49075, 111PB, N22PJ) - Built 2/15/1938. Retained by the factory until purchased by A.J. Olson in 1940. Seen in John Wayne movie "Overland Stage Raiders." AAF serial number 42-38368 worn during war time service. Restored (in 1995) to grey/grey trim paint scheme. Owned by Nigel Pickard, registered to Aircraft Preservation. Based in England (also owns s/n 21). 7W-15, NC17616 (NC236, N836) - Built 3/30/1938. Sold to Condor Petroleum Co. in TX. Reportedly flown by a number of famous pilots, including Howard Hughes. Flown by the CAA in 1943 in the Washington D.C. area. AAF serial number 42-57515 worn during war time service. Was restored by Ken and Lorraine Morris of Poplar Grove, Illinois. Based in Oshkosh for several years. Displayed at Airventure 2016. Flown to Europe Summer 2020. Owned by Boris and Iriana Efmkin, based in Moscow, Russia. 7W-16, N17617 - Built 4/30/1938. Sold to Seismograph Service Co. in OK. Later flown in California at the Polaris Flight Academy. Then transfer to Royal Canadian Air Force S/N KD101 based in Dorval. Registered to Don Lindholm, Morning Sun, IA. Being repaired from landing accident in July 2018. 7W-17, NC17634 (NC17630, KD102, N1MJ, NC17667) - Built 2/22/1939. Initially sold to Claude Drilling Co. of OK. Flown with the RAF in Canada as KD102 during the war years. Current owners are Jim and Anita Savage based in Butler, PA. Flown on a regular basis and on display at Oshkosh the last couple years. Flown to Airventure 2017. 7W-18, N4444 (NC17631, N3LL) - Built 3/22/1939. AAF serial number 42-38267 worn during war time service. Owned by Cournoyer estate in St. Louis. Under long term restoration to fly. Slowly getting close to flyable. Photo by Will Kientz Summer 2020. 7W-21, NC17633 - Built 7/29/1939. First sold to Red Rock Glycerin Co. of TX. Named "The Rocket." AAF serial number 42-38367 worn during war time service. Summer 2008 flown to new owner, Nigel Pickard (Registered to Aircraft Preservation) in England (also owns s/n 14). 7W-22, NC17659 - Built 2/23/1940. First sold to Standard Oil Company of Ohio. Later damaged and burned when engine failed during take-off at Hawthorne, CA in 1974. Then fully restored by same owners in California. Owned by Edgar Newberg of Hector, MN. 7W-25, N47W (NC17656) - Built 10/31/1939. First sold to Luziers of MS. AAF serial number 42-38288 worn during war time service. Owned and flown by Paul Mantz from 1945-1950. After long term restoration in CT, sold in 2017 to Sebastien Mazzuchetti of France. 7W-26, N5053 (NC17657, N46481) - Built 11/2/1939. First sold to Iowa newspaper, the Des Moines Register and Tribune. Named "Good News VII." AAF serial number 42-38266 worn during war time service. Currently owned by Bobby Lett of Dallas. 7W-27, NC17658 - Built 12/14/1939. First sold to Thompson Equipment in 1940. Owned Wayne Duncan, Athol, Idaho. Rumored to be for sale. Not sure of flight status. 7W-28, NC17662 - Built 3/7/1940. Kept by Spartan as company transport until 1968. Restored by Ron Tarrson in 2004-2005. Purchased in early 2016 by Steve Marini (former owner of NC20200). Flown from Airventure 2018 to new owner, Mid America Flight Museum, in Texas. 7W-30, NC17664 (N97DC) - Built 4/24/1940. First sold to aircraft dealer. AAF serial number 42-38369 worn during war time service. Currently owned and flown by Burton Bucher of Waukegan, Illinois. Painted in Texaco colors. 7W-31, NC17665 (NC46426) - Built 5/17/1940. First sold to B.K. Douglas of NY. AAF serial number 42-38287 worn during war time service. Currently owned and flown by Gigi Brisson in California. 7W-34, N34SE (NC17668, N668MD, N1667D) - Built 9/9/1940. Last Executive built. First sold to Texaco in 1940 for use in NY area. Flown as Mrs. Mennen twice in its life when owned by the Mennen family. Registered to Claire Aviation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . NX21962 - Related to the Executive is the Spartan Model 12. Restored and static with museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Welcome to the Spartan Executive page. Have you wondered how many of these vintage airplanes have survived the test of time? Who cares for these aviation treasures? What is their current condition? Where are they based? Here you will find pictures of the Spartan Seven series and a brief history of each aircraft. 34 production 7Ws were built, 20 complete airframes survive and about 12 are in flyable condition. If you can provide more information and pictures please email us. For the owner who seeks "INDIVIDUALITY" - Recognized in the airports of the world as the most distinguished of all private planes, the SPARTAN "Executive" is the fulfillment of everything the discriminating man looks for in personal transportation: the exciting beauty of thoroughbred design. the luxury of ultra smart custom-built interiors. the security of an all metal masterpiece equipped with every refinement that adds to performance and safety. flying ease that amazes even veteran airman! The more exacting your demands, the more you owe it to yourself to investigate the "Executive." Boys and men. Nigel Pickard's debut novel is the story of a couple with an autistic child. Sol and Kate, parents of five-year-old Tom, bicker and wrestle; in exhaustion, they reaffirm their love. They learn a new, mannered, private language, reminiscent of that of the couple in Peter Nichols's play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (a work with a similar subject). As Sol attempts to supervise Tom in the playground, or dazedly sits with him through sleepless nights, he recalls his own life so far: a childhood in which he never quite fitted into the gang; expulsion from boarding school; the time when Kate had an abortion; aimless post-university life; getting a proper job. Maybe, he reflects, Tom's autism is a reflection of, or punishment for, his own solipsism. Autism is an increasingly prevalent theme in fiction and non-fiction. Regional novels such as One, however, are out of fashion. At their worst, they can be mired in a drab naturalism; but Pickard's voice has an assured, observant and unsettling poetry. Boys at War , by Russell Margerison (Northway, £7.99) Russell Margerison flew during the second world war with 625 Squadron, as a gunner on a Lancaster bomber. His plane was shot down over Belgium and after incarceration in Stalag Luft VII, he arrived home in May 1945, still only 20. His memoir is all the more immediate for its artlessness. Amid the plain prose, he produces arresting images. A stricken bomber "reared up till it was standing on its tail, as if having received an uppercut from Popeye"; another "shuddered violently, like a dog which had just emerged from water". Margerison's account of his own behaviour - which, when he was starving and desperate, was not always selfless - is similarly unaffected. His candour increases one's admiration for him.