It's hard to see how it would work (particularly down here) but ITV is hoping to establish a chain of Rovers Return theme pubs across Britain.

Their dream is to pull off a piece of product placement that will find a slice of Coronation Street in every town centre.

Their Rovers Return boozers would presumably be occupying the same slot in the market so neatly filled by Irish theme pubs in recent years.

In place of old barrels, farm implements and retro Guinness ads they could enjoy a whole bunch of new props like Ena Sharples' hairnet, Jack Duckworth's broken glasses and maybe Stan and Hilda's "muriel".

ITV executives believe they have hit on a great way to capitalise on one of their most enduring programmes. "We're looking to exploit all our brands in a far more commercial and efficient way," says managing director, Dawn Airey, adding, "Prog-rammes like Coronation Street offered a huge amount of potential value."

The move comes in the wake of initiatives being instigated by ITV boss Michael Grade in a bid fight off the twin threat of a slowing economy and increased competition from the internet.

So you have the curious sight of a company desperate to show shareholders that it's fighting fit for the future by establishing a network of what are effectively nostalgia pubs across the nation.

That they are now apparently looking for a pub chain partner to help them achieve their goal is frankly bizarre.

For the Rovers Return - while remaining a steadfast feature at the heart of Coronation Street's fictional world - is exactly the kind of pub that for the past 30 years has been all but completely wiped out by the chains.

In fact if Coronation Street really existed The Rovers would almost certainly have been closed and converted into a house or bulldozed and turned into flats.

Meanwhile the chains themselves, while clearly tantalised by the idea of a business that enjoys hours of automatic TV advertising each week, seem to doubt that some of the Rovers unique characteristics would appeal their supposedly increasingly sophisticated clientele.

Peter Eyles boss of the Cross Oak Inns told The Times yesterday "We put a big emphasis on the quality of our food so we'd have to do something about Betty's hotpot."

Might I suggest that leaving it alone might be a good idea. Betty Turpin's legendary Lancashire hotpot is one thing that just might make the leap from tellyland to real-life.

Meanwhile John Hutson, top man at J.D. Weatherspoon's, reckoned that a Rovers chain might work just so long as he didn't have to employ Bet Lynch behind the bar. Why? Bet - loud and larger than life - was surely one of the pub's greatest assets.

Alas it seems that though this curious hometown/clonetown hybrid may still struggle into existence, the concept of pubs with proper home cooking and real characters pulling the pints might be a step too far for 21st century Britain.