ITV axes The South Bank Show

ITV's flagship arts programme The South Bank Show is to be axed after more than 30 years.

The presenter Melvyn Bragg will step down next year at the end of the current series and ITV said there were no plans for another.

Michael Grade, ITV's executive chairman who originally commissioned the South Bank Show while at London Weekend Television, said he was proud the programme had become the benchmark for 'popular arts programming'.

Bragg has hosted the multi-award-winning show since it was launched in 1978 with a programme featuring Germaine Greer, Gerald Scarfe and Paul McCartney.

"I have decided to leave ITV at the end of my current contract. Sadly, the South Bank Show will not continue beyond the middle of next year," he said.

"I have had the luck and privilege to work with fine programme makers and with hundreds of the best artists of the last half century. I look forward to ITV's future arts output and wish it the best of luck."

The 69-year-old will also step down as controller of arts for ITV Studios.

Over several hundred programmes, the South Bank Show has featured a wide range of subjects and interviewees, not all from the cerebral end of broadcasting.

Peter Fincham, ITV's director of television, said: "Up until the South Bank Show's arrival, this genre had been narrowly focused on classical music, ballet, operas and art.

"Melvyn's energy, passion and enthusiasm to broaden the arts spectrum dramatically changed things overnight with programming featuring popular music, TV drama, photography and films and big names including Francis Ford Coppola, Billy Connolly, Woody Allen and Eric Clapton."

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