Advertisers Include Family Affairs And Daytime ITV In Their Idea Of “Hell”

ITV’s daytime schedule has been attacked by one of its major advertisers. Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Angus McIntosh, European media controller at Mars, said the network had become “stale” and unattractive to advertisers.

The complaint was aired at a session at the festival entitled “Advertisers Heaven and Hell”, which sought opinions on what advertisers were looking for in television schedules. Simon Marquis, managing director of Zenith Media, chaired the session which asked ad industry bosses to give their views on the best and worst TV programmes from a buying perspective.

Top of the favourites list was Da Ali G Show, which, “appeals to the very hard to get hold of young AB trendies who index about 4 times the commercial norm”, according to Fiona Case from Zenith. Gameshow programmes, such as Wheel of Fortune, however, attract heavy viewers of a DE bias and in these terms are “hell” for advertisers.

Big Brother and Channel 5’s Pepsi Chart Show came high in the list while buying a spot on Family Affairs was rated a “sackable offence” by one agency executive.

The complaint against ITV’s daytime programming comes as the network embarks on a shake-up of its daytime schedule with the revival of Crossroads (see ITV Revives Crossroads To Boost Flagging Daytime Schedule). McIntosh cited re-runs of Minder as indicative of the level of programming available to advertisers during the day. “Why should it be boring just because its daytime? ITV is failing at the moment, I don’t think anyone would argue with that,” he said.

Maureen Duffy, the newly-appointed controller of daytime at ITV, said she was looking at opportunities to revitalise daytime programming and announcing today’s new commissions promised a “real diversity in daytime with Crossroads alongside our talk shows, magazine and entertainment programmes and news output.”

ITV: 020 7843 8000 Zenith Media: 020 7224 8500