If GMTV was a newspaper, it would be a hybrid of The Sun, The Daily Mirror and the Mail, thanks to its "lively mix" of celebrity-biased news, views and showbiz.
The breakfast broadcaster's staple diet is young mums, who tune in for features on holidays from hell and breastfeeding in their millions - an average of 2.7 million housewives and kids a month, in fact, or 40% of the UK's housewives and kids population.
GMTV's big audiences make it an important medium for Middle England - and politicians of all parties are astute enough to realise that an appearance on Ben Shephard's sofa will get people talking about their agenda for the rest of the day.
But for a broadcaster that airs such inoffensive content - programming highlights are pre-school show The Fluffy Club and Lorraine Kelly's lifestyle show GMTV with Lorraine - GMTV generates a surprising amount of controversy.
The business has been keeping a low profile since it was fined £2m by Ofcom in 2007 after it was found to have misled viewers over faked premium-rate phone-in competitions. And in May, just as the dust was beginning to settle after the resignation of former managing director Paul Corley, GMTV hit the headlines again over news it is making massive cuts to its presenters' salaries, with top earner Kelly reportedly facing a pay cut of £87,000.
Simon Poole, 46, was officially appointed sales and marketing director in April, after fulfilling the role on an acting basis for 18 months, reporting to Clive Crouch, who was made permanent chief operating officer last August. Poole, who has been at GMTV for 11 years, has been well-briefed before his interview with Media Week, so his response to the presenters' pay cuts story is "no comment".
He has also been advised to steer well clear of commenting on the phone-in scandal. However, the fact that GMTV has reinstated its competitions, which can be entered on-air and online, indicates viewers' trust in GMTV has been restored.
Poole confirms: "Yes, we have restored trust. We have worked extremely hard to ensure our viewers feel GMTV is looking after them correctly and it is really important our viewers come first. That is our business - if our viewers don't like what they see or don't trust us in any way, then it is all finished."
Restored confidence
Viewer confidence is borne out by GMTV's audience figures, which are holding steady year on year, with total average share down 0.6% Monday to Friday and up 1.9% for the children-focused schedules on Saturday and Sunday.
GMTV will not disclose its revenue figures, but an agency source reports the company has outperformed the market by six points both this year and last. In 2009, GMTV is down 10% in a market that is down 16%, while last year it was up 2% in a market that fell 4%. This performance makes GMTV one of the best- performing sales points in the TV market for the past two years.
Poole says 2009 has been tougher than 2008, but believes GMTV has been insulated from the worst of the recession because of where the company sits in the broadcasting spectrum. He says: "We are quite a cost-effective advertising channel, so we have been less affected by the [economic] changes.
"We haven't traditionally taken a strong share of those areas that have fared worse - such as cars and finance - and because of that we have been doing relatively well."
GMTV is an unusual broadcaster because it has a niche time (6.30am to 9.25am), a unique programming mix (news/celebrity in the week and kids at the weekend) and a potentially conflicting ownership structure (it is 75%-owned by commercial rival ITV, with the remaining 25% owned by Disney). Yet Poole denies that making money for ITV while competing with it for advertising pounds is an issue.
He says: "We have a different sell to ITV - we are a breakfast day-part, so we offer a different opportunity for clients and advertisers. Obviously, the spend we would like is the same that ITV would like, so we do compete, but in a complementary way."
And while others in the industry believe ITV was "daft" to take its CITV sales business back in-house, away from GMTV, Poole denies the contract loss has left a hole in the company's balance sheets. However, he describes CITV as a "very complementary product" to GMTV's kids' shows and says he would be open to taking on other third-party sales that fit with the company's specialisms.
Generating revenue
For the time being, GMTV is focusing on generating its revenue from the four main streams of spot ads, which account for 95% of the company's business, sponsorship, competitions and online. Poole is proud of sponsors' long-running associations with GMTV shows, such as Henkle's eight-year tie-up with the minute-long DIY feature, and believes this shows there is "something unique" about breakfast TV.
To prove this point, GMTV commissioned research from neuroscientist Adrian Owen of Neurosense, where viewers' brainwaves were measured with an MRI scanner at different times of the day. The results showed "people are more likely to understand, remember and like TV commercials when they are seen in the morning".
Poole says: "You shouldn't dismiss breakfast TV just because you don't watch it. People have a strong affinity to GMTV and they have a unique relationship with our presenters." Can 4.5 million viewers a day be wrong? Evidently not.
CV
2009 Sales and marketing director, GMTV
2001 Sales controller, GMTV
1998 Business controller, GMTV
1996 Associate director, CIA
1993 Broadcast manager, Leo Burnett
1990 TV buyer, Gold Greenlees Trott
1990 Sales executive, TV-am
1987 Graduate trainee, Central TV
Sits on the boards of GMTV and Thinkbox
Family Married to Fiona with three sons aged 17, 15 and eight
Desert island media Sky1's The Take, his wife's copy of Grazia, Metro and thelondonpaper
Lives Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire
Football team Arsenal
Poole on...
How to beat a tough market: We try to do a lot of business with the smaller clients that may be looking for their first opportunity to use TV. There are always markets that emerge in recessions and we try to work out what they might be. For example, shoe shops and UK holiday companies such as Pontins and Butlins can get national presence quite cost-effectively.
Reminding the industry of the power of TV: There is a lot of talk about how the internet can offer a fantastic advertising solution, but the reality is it doesn't work without TV. Our biggest challenge is reminding advertisers how strong and powerful TV is and how well it can work for brands - the myriad opportunities beyond spot ads.
Major challenges: Our biggest challenge is always the BBC - it has a very similar breakfast show to us and, in fact, it tries to copy what we do, which is flattering. Our priority is maintaining people's interest and giving viewers what they want to see in the morning. Our shows are live, so we have to keep ourselves current and up to date.