The Beeb's early-evening blues

BBC 1's 7pm slot isn't working, and BBC 2 has lost 'The Simpsons'. The corporation is desperate to find some new hits. Keely Winstone asks the channels' controllers how they intend to fill the gaps

A select group of BBC entertainment executives has been on a week-long brainstorming summit with the aim of creating new shows for key schedule slots. The pressure is on to find BBC 2 a sure-fire replacement for The Simpsons and BBC 1 a weekday regular that can hold its own against ITV1's rampant Emmerdale at 7pm.

The away week has to help the entertainment team to galvanise itself for battle. The important 6pm slot on BBC 2, for example, is also being pitched for by the BBC's factual department and by independent producers. All are workingto create a show that will get the approval of Jane Root, BBC2's controller. BBC 2 lost the rights to its 6pm incumbent, The Simpsons, to Channel 4 earlier this year. In a bidding war between the BBC, Channel 5 and Channel4, the episode price rose to near£1m.

With experiences such as the switch of Have I Got News for You to BBC1 behind her, Root is sanguine about finding a successor to The Simpsons. "When HIGNFY moved to BBC1, everyone was saying, 'Oh my God, what a black day for BBC2.' But it wasn't. We survived; we prospered. And you're always looking to reinvent."

BBC commissioning executives are briefing producers on the lessons of The Simpsons – "It has attitude; it's for kids and adults; it's entertainment and escapism; it resolves within one episode" – but with budgets for stripped shows (shown in the same slot every day) not running to huge sums, many are finding it a tough nut to crack. "They're looking for a cheap Robot Wars or a new way to do Ready Steady Cook," says an independent producer. "It's not easy."

Root says she is still open to ideas, despite having made some progress. "We've got two or three pilots in the works and we're developing projects that look promising. And next month, for a week, we're going to be putting out Treasure Hunt [a remake of the 1980s Anneka Rice show]."

With a potential audience inheritance of 4.5 million from The Weakest Link, Root has high hopes for any new shows that can run five nights a week. "Stripped shows have a lot of potential. Look at some of the things that have started in daytime: we're running Flog It! early on a Saturday evening; The Weakest Link, which started as an incredibly cheap show, went to BBC1 primetime; Bargain Hunt is in primetime..."

There is also the movement of shows between the BBC's two terrestrial stations and its digital channels. Root says that the next series of the US real-time drama 24 will have the same form as before, with BBC2 airing the initial and last episodes first but BBC Choice (to be relaunched as BBC3 in February) going a week ahead in between.

Meanwhile, BBC1 is considering a far more controversial option for the window-sharing with EastEnders. An airing of EastEnders on BBC3 one episode ahead of BBC1 has been mooted for BBC3's launch schedule at least, a move not likely to find much support among terrestrial EastEnders fans or licence-fee payers in general. And with the 7pm slot already seen as something of a problem for BBC1, the supremacy of EastEnders at 7.30/8pm needs to be protected.

BBC1's stab at a lavish reality show, the widely panned Fame Academy, has been building an audience, but its 7pm outing is being trounced by ITV1's Emmerdale. The soap, which has a pronounced skew toward a youth audience, regularly pulls in nine million viewers; BBC1 is getting half that. Fame Academy has also not performed on BBC Choice.

Other 7pm shows aren't performing much better. "No one is very happy with the performance of Holiday 2002," says one BBC insider. The BBC1 controller, Lorraine Heggessey, denies that the latest Holiday is a disappointment and says she is happy with it as a brand. But she admits that there needs to be variety in the types of shows in that slot. With BBC1 looking to fill some key slots within this tax year, so budgets aren't cut for next year, 7pm is another opportunity to brainstorm. Heggessey put out tenders for the slot a month ago, and pitching sessions start before Christmas.

Echoing Root's stance on BBC2's 6pm slot, Heggessey is open to entertainment and factual entertainment series as well as stripped shows. Shows that contrast with current options – for example, the consumer show Watchdog – are most likely to impress. Heggessey hopes to have her new-look 7pm schedule in place by next spring.

Saturday early evening is also vying for her attention. It's traditionally a problem area for both main channels, but BBC1 has been having particular problems recently. A series of disappointments was topped off by the quiz show The Chair, hosted by John McEnroe.

Heggessey admits that Saturday night needs rejuvenating – "It's under review" – and says fresh shows are in development to tackle the problem. She is adamant that she does not want back-to-back entertainment shows. Although she will consider drama and factual programmes, Ian Wright is to be given another stab at Saturday with a pilot family challenge show, I'd Do Anything, from the independent production firm TWI. Heggessey points out that it is not a studio-bound show.

The BBC's new director of television, Jana Bennett, has derided "Saturday nights locked up in purple or pink studios guessing the answers to the same questions" and called for "original thinking".