Programme Analysis: Bodyguards W/E 18/05/97

ITV’s primetime drama Bodyguards captured a consolidated audience of 7.106 million, a TRV of 13, on Thursday 15th May. On other channels at the same time (9pm) were Dispatches (C4, 2 TVRs), Competition (C5, 1 TVR), Sportsnight (BBC1, 12 TVRs) and Place for Annie (BBC2 5 TVRs).

Advertisers in Bodyguards’ two centre breaks were Vauxhall Corsa, Blockbuster video, Toffee Crisp, Ace Bleach, Dove soap, Strongbow, Tesco, Fiat Punto, IBM, Fruitful cereal, The Relic and Eagle Star insurance. This would appear to indicate that the target audience was predominantly young Women and Housewives while IBM, Eagle Star and the car ads would appeal more to male viewers.

Given that Bodyguards generally comes across as the high-level ‘boy’s own stuff’ of spying, espionage and assassination games, it is perhaps surprising that it attracts so many female viewers. Maybe Sean Pertwee helps in this department! The fact that there was a relatively low male audience could be put down to the fact that Sportsnight was on BBC1 (with a male TVR of 17) were it not for the fact that the previous week Bodyguard’s profile was almost identical. Advertisers and their agencies however appear to be bang on target with their ads since there was a Housewives TVR of 17, a Women TVR of 16 and a Male TVR of 14.

In terms of viewing by regions there was not that much variation, with all areas pulling in TVRs of above 11 with the highest being 15. Generally Northern areas had the strongest viewing for the programme, with Central Scotland having 15 TVRs and the North West and North East each having 14. London and the Midlands had TVRs of 11 each while the East and South West both had 12 TVRs.

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