Eyre Explains “Fantastically Ambitious” ITV Targets

Speaking at the MRG Conference in Nice this morning, Richard Eyre, chief executive of ITV, explained his thinking behind setting ITV’s 40% peak-time target for the year 2000. “I was not forced into it. ITV had under-performed, and the alternative was to manage decline. Everyone – John Birt apart – wants a strong ITV.”

Eyre admitted that the targets were “fantastically ambitious”; “I’d expect at least a knighthood if we hit it”, but that they had immediately provoked positive resolute action from within ITV. It was as important to change expectations internally as externally.

Updating delegates on the targets at week 34, he said this year’s peak time target of 38% was within reach. ITV was currently hitting 37.8% share at peak-time. In an age of accountability, ITV should be no different; setting such targets is just one answer. He accepted that there was an element of risk that if digital took off “exceptionally fast”, 40% would be even harder to attain.

On the other much publicised, but related, issue of News At Ten, Eyre was equally open. Research showed the proposal to move the main news to an earlier slot had been “rarely welcomed”, but he stressed the difficulty in researching the question “How are you going to feel about something you’ve never experienced?”

“News at Ten is reassuring and enjoys great brand loyalty, but 2 million viewers to ITV at 9.45pm are no longer there at 10pm. Loyalty was to the format not to the schedule.”

Responding to a suggestion from John Billett that the move could be test-marketed in one region, Eyre suggested that this was not wholly practical, and that if the ITC came back with such a proposal “we would resist this.”