Happy 60th birthday, ITV. Am I the only one who remembers, or cares?

I've searched Twitter for a frenetic #ILoveITV feed, yet for some reason none is forthcoming

Cora Crawley (centre) with her two daughters Mary and Edith (ITV)

As Dowager Countess Violet Crawley sneers through her final pithy asides in Downton Abbey’s closing series, it’s easy to forget the resounding non-enthusiasm which greeted it when first trailed in 2010. But then, Downton Abbey belonged to ITV – the channel celebrating its 60th birthday this week. “Aw, bless,” was the general media chunter. “ITV has paid that toff Julian Fellowes a whack of cash to make them a Gosford Park-lite for Sunday-night ITV dummies. It looks awful.”

But shortly after the first wag of a fat Labrador’s tail, and our first meeting with Lady Mary’s perilous love life, Downton was TV golddust. Just like Auf Wiedersehen, Pet in 1983 and Cold Feet in 1997, here was broad, warm, loveable drama which rated ridiculously well. No, it wasn’t Stephen Poliakoff farting about with opaque themes to an audience of precisely 18 – including himself and his agent – but there’s plenty of room for that over at the Beeb (as well as plenty who won’t watch it, but will blog until their fingers are bloody stumps about the BBC’s quasi-sacred right to make it).

This isn’t a pop at the BBC, I must stress, as I’m a terrific fan. I understand the loud, protective mewlings about Blue Peter, Panorama, Springwatch or Match of the Day. I get how some people feel as comforted by The Archers theme tune as they would by a cuddle and freshly buttered toast from mummy.

Yet, in contrast, as ITV celebrates this landmark birthday it’s almost as if the chattering classes do not give a damn. I have searched Twitter fruitlessly for a frenetic #iloveitv feed full of full-throated adoration for Saturday morning Tiswas with Lenny Henry or World In Action’s eerie theme tune. None is forthcoming. There is a distinct lack of dewy-eyed thoughts on Big Daddy on World of Sport with Dickie Davies or Runaround with Mike Reid.

Can I be the only person hewn from a childhood ogling The Kenny Everett Television Show with Cleo Rocos? Are Streetmate and God’s Gift with Davina McCall wedged in my brain only as utterly wonderful? Was I alone in spending the 1980s watching and rewatching wonky VHS recordings of Saturday lunchtime’s The Chart Show, helpless with gratitude when ITV focused on the “indie chart” and showed a nine second snatch of a Dinosaur Jr video?

For many years ITV was the only channel that broadcasted nocturnally, so here was where we saw Raw Power at 3am, alongside reruns of Married With Children. ITV has always taken broadcasting risks, always given a home to the shows other schedulers wouldn’t dare. And this paid off in spadeloads. Chums with Ant and Dec, anyone? The kids TV in-joke that sent adults with hangovers wild. Or the Tory-baiting New Statesman with Rik Mayall?

I will always worship ITV for livening up arduous, understimulated 1980s Sundays where the only light relief was Bullseye with Jim Bowen at 4pm, then, if you managed to avoid bedtime, Wood and Walters, where I got the first glimpse of my beloved Victoria and Julie. I could yadder on like this all day because, until around the age of 18, it never struck me that all homes didn’t watch ITV – loving the adverts as much as the actual shows – almost continuously. I didn’t know that people found ITV a bit, well, common.

In fact for me, it’s a sad occurrence, to meet anyone over the age of 40 who cannot sing the entire Shake n’ Vac ad jingle. Or anyone who doesn’t, to this day, still suspect that when we’re not watching the zoo’s panda enclosure, the pandas do a flamboyant roller-skating routine while eating Kit Kats. One of the greatest things on TV now is the Currys advert with the girl playing a guitar ballad to her father to butter him up for a new laptop.

ITV has always been gloriously unashamed about ad-breaks. They’re a necessary evil. And by evil I mean “often a lot more exciting than the show itself”. There were several times during the BBC’s Boys From The Blackstuff when a chance to put on the kettle or watch a woman making her lounge carpet Mountain Glade-fresh would have been a welcome relief.

But, perhaps largely because of these revenue-pumping adverts, there is no misty-eyed love of ITV – precisely because we’ll never be forced to fight to save it. With great steadiness comes scant sentimentality. Management styles, rebrandings and viewer remits at ITV may have morphed and multiplied over six solid decades, yet our general opinion seems to be that it can please itself. And if it pleases viewers too – whoever they are, those ghastly people up north who never knew Oxbridge and actually watch Emmerdale – well, even better.

Meanwhile, Judi Dench, Daniel Craig and Mark Rylance sign open letters to Number 10 extolling the BBC’s life-enhancing virtues. “In our view, a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain,” one such letter reads. This is an enormous statement, even for thespians who are mostly, frankly, barking mad following a lifetime of doing silly voices for money in rooms full of other thespians. Yet it is enormous without being ridiculous.

The BBC, for just 40 pence per day, provides entertainment, news and education to millions. That’s a wonderful thing. Let’s not forget however, that ITV has done a similar thing – just with the use of adverts. It charged no one a penny for six decades – but it’ll still have a long wait for a birthday card from James Bond or JK Rowling. I’ve fired up Moonpig.com and sent one myself, but I fear it won’t quite be the same.