The call was made by Mark Jarvis, the former head of media at Carat, speaking at a seminar held by UKTV, along with Trevor Beattie, Jim Marshall and Jay Pond-Jones. The four were invited to suggest ways to fix the problem of how to get viewers back on Saturday nights.
Jarvis criticised ITV and other broadcasters for being "risk averse" and not doing enough research into what audiences want.
"I would drop advertising in the centre breaks of my programmes. It worked for '24' in the US. It would require a radical shift in the way that TV is bought and sold," Jarvis said.
Jarvis, who left Carat last week, has not revealed where he is heading, having kept quiet on the subject of his next job.
Beattie, hitting out at broadcasters' reliance on derivative programme formats and celebrities, said: "Programme executives think 'Here's a format that works -- let's absolutely milk it dry and then add the word "celebrity"'."
Extensively outlining his evening schedule, including 'Noose at Ten', Beattie eventually got to the sane core of his argument. Broadcasters should be focusing on participatory event television, "building towards an event at the end of the night".
Driving home his point of "event" television, Beattie said he had the ideal solution. "I think I would set up public execution TV. It's an old trick I know, but it has worked before," he said.
Pond-Jones, a former creative director of Mother and Bates, and now working in independent television production with Colour TV, warned that Saturday nights has fallen victim to media fragmentation earlier than expected.
Viewers, he said, could find content not just on live broadcast TV, but using Sky+, mobile television and even from the internet using file-sharing services, decreasing their exposure to ads.
"Where is the new funding [for commercial broadcasters] going to come from?" he asked, questioning the view that potential deregulation of product placement and sponsorship rules would result in more money coming to broadcasters.
The subject of how advertisers could help broadcasters maintain audience levels often cropped up, with Beattie and Pond-Jones talking up the opportunity for brands to help create mass audience, shared experience TV.
"My clients will fund shows once the hurdle of product placement is cleared," Beattie said.
Pond-Jones said he was looking forward to a show ITV was screening later this year that would involve the public deciding how £60m of Lottery money should be spent, but added that there was not a clear view coming from ITV about how it felt about advertiser-funded programming.
The evening did bring recognition that expectations of ITV being able to bring back the days of 10m peak audiences were unfair, and 5m-7m was more realistic.
However, the broadcaster was strongly criticised by Marshall, chairman of Starcom UK, for not spending enough money to promote its schedule and focusing only on 18- to 34-year-olds in its summer schedule.
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