GMTV to relaunch weekdays in 2008

GMTV will relaunch its weekday shows this year in an effort to regain an audience lead over BBC Breakfast.

The broadcaster today said it would extend its news coverage and reintroduce competitions.

"We are planning a re-launch of our Monday-Friday programming in 2008 following extensive research with our viewers," said GMTV's plan for the year's programming.

"Although we did fall marginally behind BBC Breakfast in terms of share of individuals in 2007, we fully intend to regain our position as prominent broadcaster in 2008," it added.

National and international news and current affairs will be extended. It added: "We will also be looking urgently at the way in which our regional news is provided and who will provide it within our daily programme.

"Housewives with children remain our key weekday commercial audience and... we will continue to provide those elements of programming, including lifestyle and entertainment, which we believe are relevant to our audience, particularly post 8am."

Phone-in competitions were a major revenue-generating feature for GMTV before it was found to have misconducted them and ripped off viewers.

The broadcaster referred to the issue as a "disaster" that would continue to affect it this year.

"We intend to re-introduce competitions to GMTV this year but only after we are totally convinced that all possible safeguards have been put into place to guarantee fair play for the viewers and full compliance with all regulations," it said.

"We cannot of course forecast what viewer reaction will be to the return of the competitions and therefore the impact on our revenue."

GMTV was fined £2m by Ofcom for allowing viewers to phone up when they could not win.