Media & Marketing: Radio bosses and media buyers/planners will be scrutinising next Tuesday's radio JNLR figures intensely, writes Emmet Oliver.

Covering the first half of this year, they will provide a detailed snapshot of what is happening in the radio sector, with new stations such as NewsTalk 106 desperately seeking some good news amid a severe downturn in ad spending.

The figures will give a much bigger breakdown than the interim figures released a few months ago. For example, media buyers will be able to assess whether the switch from Eamonn Dunphy to Matt Cooper on Today FM's The Last Word has been a success.

Considerable attention will also be paid to RTÉ's overall share of listenership, which fell to a new low when measured against local radio in the last set of figures. Covering the six months from October to March of 2003, these figures showed RTÉ's "listened yesterday" average falling 5 per cent to 50 per cent.

While the station said this was related to the number of new stations on the dial, any further substantial erosion of the 50 per cent would be bad news for radio managers in Montrose.

The figures will also show how individual RTÉ performers are faring. In the last set of full figures, advertisers were impressed by the gains in early afternoon by Joe Duffy's Liveline show, which managed to squeeze past Today With Pat Kenny in the internal league tables.

There will also be interest in the traditional battle between Dublin stations 98 FM and FM 104, both of which have been spending considerable monies this year on marketing and promotions.

But NewsTalk has the most to lose if the figures are poor. While €1 million of fresh funds has been arranged for September and main backer Denis O'Brien remains on board, anything less than a 1-2 per cent increase would be disastrous for the station.

The consensus in the industry yesterday was that a small rise may be on the cards, with the station's chief executive, Mr Aidan Dunne, claiming the station has experienced a "barn storming" summer.

The station is hopeful that its star turn in the evenings, rugby pundit George Hook, has inflicted some damage on Matt Cooper. Mr Dunne also claims the number of text messages reaching the station in recent months has exploded.

Justifying licence fee

The licence fee increase awarded to RTÉ before Christmas by the Minister for Communications, Mr Ahern, does not appear to have resulted in complete harmony between his Department and the station, according to new Freedom Of Information (FOI) documents.

On May 7th, the station presented its "statement of commitments", which was essentially its contract with the audience, to the Minister in Dublin's Buswell Hotel.

While the station's management and Mr Ahern smiled for the cameras, it now transpires that earlier drafts of the statement fell foul of the Minister's Department.

The "statement of commitments" was supposed to be RTÉ's commitment to its audience and was meant to outline a set of specific promises about programming and services.

Essentially, the station was supposed to outline what it was going to do for the licence fee increase. However, according to FOI letters released recently, the Minister's department was not too happy with RTÉ's original statement.

One of the Department's most senior officials, Mr Eamonn Molloy, in a letter dated February 25th, wrote to the station telling it that "the Minister would consider it unhelpful to publish the 2003 Statement of Commitments in its present form".

The station obviously heeded the advice because the statement did not emerge into the public domain until May.

Mr Molloy's letter told RTÉ management that the commitments in the statement needed to "more specific if they are to be measurable".

His letter continued: "Many of the outputs included in the Statement of Commitments are described in a similar way, with a commitment to increase without any indication of by how much. Unless the outputs to be delivered are more specific, then they will not provide a meaningful basis for evaluation".

With new figures showing RTÉ's viewership holding up well over the summer, the station is unlikely to be concerned right now about the niceties of what was in the original statement. However, the Minister has promised to appoint consultants to assess whether RTÉ has met the terms of the statement and whether the licence fee money has been used properly. An announcement on this is expected shortly.

Boom in parent mags

Advertising and publishing executives are scratching their collectives heads in the United States as parenting titles manage to do the impossible in 2003, build circulation and profits.

Described by the influential AdAge journal as "one of the more unlikely hotspots in the magazine world", parenting magazines are raking in advertising in ways that motoring, women's and sport titles can only dream about.

Three top titles in the US - Parenting, American Baby and Parents - have all managed to boost ad revenue and sales in the past year.

Alongside them are a group of themed products like Martha Stewart's Kids and Baby and Disney's Family Fun.

While there was a drop of 3.2 per cent in advertising for magazines generally, the amount of ad space in Parents rose 6.5 per cent, Child experienced a rise of 21.4 per cent, while at Time Inc Parenting ad space grew by 5.8 per cent.

Why the popularity of baby, mother and parenting titles? One advertiser in the US explained it simply. "You're always going to have parents that are not confident.

"Entry-level parents are where advertisers have an opportunity to establish their loyalties."

Waterford Crystal deal

One of the most prestigious creative and media accounts, Waterford Crystal, has been won by the Owens DDB agency.

Mr Brian McGee, marketing manager with Waterford, said the brand remained one of the "icons" of the Irish economy and Owens would help to market the brand among new and younger consumers, some of them coming to crystal for the first time. With links with John Rocha and Jaspar Conran, the brand has generally been advertised in glossy print titles, but Mr McGee said this might change in the years ahead.

Industry sources believe the account is worth about €1 million a year. The account was previously held by Youngs for eight years.