Media&Marketing: Advertisements for a range of services and products are currently banned from the airwaves, including betting, moneylending and fortune telling.
The Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) is now embarking on a process which could see several of these products or services promoted on television and radio for the first time next year. The BCI will shortly review existing advertising codes, holding out the prospect for television and radio stations to boost revenue.
At present, the rules governing betting advertising on television and radio are a little murky. Any advertisement which "encourages people to bet" is not allowed, but advertising which simply mentions the services available is allowed. Also banned, however, are any advertisements giving betting tips.
While this sort of stuff may suggest a certain nanny state mentality, the list of banned products and services to be reviewed is far more extensive than just betting and fortune telling. At present you cannot advertise contact lenses, for instance. Smoking cures or weight reduction products are also prohibited.
The BCI said yesterday it hoped to come up with a new set of rules which are "consistent and flexible". With competition already fierce in the radio and television advertising markets, there will no doubt be pressure over the next few months for a more liberal regime.
Stations claim this is needed because their competitors online and in the newspaper world are allowed take advertisements for many of the restricted products and services.
City Channel
The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, will push the starting button on City Channel, a new TV station for Dublin run by David Harvey, on Tuesday.
Mr Harvey, who has run his own independent production company for a number of years, said yesterday the response from the advertising community had been "above expectations".
He said that, as long as overheads were kept low, the station had a great chance of being a commercial success. He said many of the advertisers were companies that could not efford to advertise on television normally or could not get any slots. "This is like local radio but with pictures. Our biggest problem has been keeping down expectations," said Harvey.
City Channel is being supported by a number of private investors, incuding Nissan Ireland, which has taken a small equity stake. On the programming side, the station is offering services for the Polish community in Ireland. It is also carrying the FM 104 Adrian Kennedy show live.
Less TV, more ads
While the conventional wisdom says otherwise, Irish people are not watching more television. In fact there has been a 12 per cent drop in televison viewing over the last five years.
But Irish people are confronting more advertisements than ever before. Figures released this week by Dublin agency Initiative show that viewers are exposed to 16 per cent more advertisements than five years ago.
The average Irish adult is now exposed to an average of 275 TV advertisements per week, compared to 242 in the year 2000. The main explanation appears to be the type of stations viewers are watching. "The growth of multichannel and digital TV, which contain more advertising minutes, combined with BBC's 16 per cent decline in share of viewing over the period, has contributed to this trend," the agency explained.
The Republic compares quite favourably in the clutter stakes to other countries. According to an Initiative study, US adults are exposed to 817 television advertisements per week, while Spanish adults see 634 TV commercials every week. Ireland ranks in the bottom 25 per cent of countries studied.
Creative QMP
In last week's column reference was made to the creative work produced by the advertising agency QMP. The company recently reported strong profit growth and several new account wins.
The agency this week said the agency's creative work was of a very high standard and the agency had recently won several awards. A representative said it was not fair to suggest the agency was not noted for its creative output.
The agency was the top awarded agency at last year's Institute of Creative and Design (ICAD) awards with ten prizes in total. The company also won a silver shark at last year's Shark festival.
