ITV aquired one of HBO's Flagships and stuck it on ITV4, is this a clever move?

Recently, when I was staying in NYC, I fell in love with a little show on HBO called Entourage. I will occasionally use this site a forum to shout from the rooftops about things I think are really worth attention. The reason I think Entourage is important is two fold. Firstly, it is an HD production and second, it is a wonderful example of art mimicking life in terms of behind the scenes wheeling and dealing. A great example of this was reported by one of my fav blogs Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz is the sequel of Aquaman (Entourage) and Spiderman (real life), where the main character, Vince, delays signing on to Aquaman 2 and loses out to Jake Gyllenhaal. This was nearly the case for Toby Maguire during a contract holdout hold-out. Sorry for the plot spoiler, but its bloody season 3 in the states and do we get it over here in the UK? We’re about to! Probably not in HD, but ITV 4 is to start the show in September, I believe. I say, what, ITV 4? The third season of Entourage opener in June hauled in 2.7 million viewers in the US. I think ITV has a winner for there 18-34 multi-channel. Much the way Sky 2/3 has with Weeds. These high profile, award winning, US cable showers with multimillion viewer figures are put on the multi-channel perhaps for a number of reasons. Weeds and Entourage are both very US focused shows and further than that they are very regional California shows. Having lived in both LA and SF, I find both shows strike the core of life in the areas. So maybe the execs feel a main stream audience wont relate to the LA life in Entourage, but can they relate to life in suburban New Jersey (Sopranos), Utah (Big Love)? I think it is that the story focuses on young people with lots of money having lots of sex. Perfect for Channel 4/5 if they bothered to take notice. But, beyond that Entourage gains much from the stellar performances by my new idol, Jeremy Piven, and Debi Mazar. I think this could be ITV4’s tent pole. So lets spread the word!

Final point, without announcing the show, ITV has started littering images of the shows star Adrian Grenier in their channel montages. From the look of him, you hardly need to guess why. But it is interesting to see how channel branders work to get people recognising faces well before explicitly advertising the show.