Quote:
“In 2006, GMTV’s share of individuals 6am-8.30am Monday to Friday, what would become the hours for its replacement Daybreak, was 30%, against BBC1’s 27%. By 2008, GMTV had slipped to 26%, while BBC1 had mustered 30%.
But crucially for GMTV’s business plan, share, while declining, remained relatively strong for the commercially important and youthful ‘housewives with children’ audience. In 2006, its share stood at 34% against BBC1’s 16%. By 2008, GMTV still achieved 30% share of this group against BBC1’s 19%; a clear and dominant lead. If an advertiser wanted one place to get loads of the right audience, then GMTV provided it.
However, GMTV was still slipping overall as BBC1 improved. By 2008, it had lost 11% of its audience in terms of share in two years, while BBC Breakfast had gained 10.7%.
Mixed fortunes
The following year was one of mixed fortunes for GMTV. Its overall share fell another 5% compared with 2008 to 25%, while BBC1 gained another 5% to achieve 32% share. But in a trend-stopping moment, GMTV’s share of housewives with children grew to just shy of 31%, an increase of 2.5% on 2008. BBC Breakfast remained broadly level for this audience on 19.2%, a 0.6% decline on 2008.
While still down on 2006, things steadied in 2009 for ITV’s breakfast franchise with regard to its commercially important audiences. Going forward and without losing these, it clearly needed to recoup the broader audiences whose desertion was driving down overall viewing. But salvation was coming.
On Thursday 26 November 2009, ITV announced it had taken full control of GMTV by buying the remaining stake held by Disney for £22m. Bright new uplands were expected. As Alison Sharman, then director of factual and daytime, put it in July 2010: “Change, both on and off screen, is an essential part of the process in our bid to reclaim the top breakfast show spot.” Reviews were ordered, investment was promised and style guides written.
Then came 2010, GMTV’s annus horribilis. How much of this was due to all eyes being on the planning and investing for the shiny new kid coming along later in the year is hard to know but it feels like more than coincidence that in this final year GMTV’s share haemorrhaged.
Its individual share between 6am and 8.30am up to 3 September 2010, its last ever day, was 20.9%; that’s 16% down on 2009 and its biggest decline for years. Worse, housewives with children fell by 18% on the previous year, which had been up to 25% share.
Over the same period, BBC Breakfast scorched ahead with a 34.5% share of individuals, a 20% increase on 2009, while its share of housewives with children was at 21.6%, an 11% increase. The share gap between BBC1 and GMTV for this young advertiser-friendly audience was now just 3.5 points; in 2009, it had been 11.5.
On 6 September 2010, after much ballyhoo, Daybreak launched and all seemed well. More than 1 million people tuned in, a share of 25%. What’s more, housewives with children had scorched back to those far-off 2009 levels with 31% share.
But it was not to last. Within a month, things weren’t going so well. On 4 October, viewing had slipped to 18% share while housewives with children lurked around 25%; the sort of levels seen in GMTV’s final, terrible year. If it was a marathon not a sprint then it was more uphill and lung-busting with each day.
Daybreak’s first autumn ended with an average of 18.5% share for individuals with 23% share for housewives with children; lower than GMTV at any time since 2006. In the same period, BBC Breakfast blasted to 36% and overtook Daybreak on share of housewives with children with 24%.”
I wonder if she'll be doing the Oscars for them next year (in fact I wonder if they will even be on the air next year ?
