Media&Marketing: It may be despised by the TV critics and dismissed for its old-fashioned values, but the Rose of Tralee continues to work wonders for RTÉ's revenue performance.
The show's success - at least in audience terms - once again underlines the appeal of live programming.
This week's final was watched by 881,000 people, the highest audience achieved in the last five years.
Ironically, it was former RTÉ broadcaster Ray D'Arcy who managed to pull in the big numbers even though he is now an employee of Today FM. D'Arcy managed to get 27 per cent more viewers than the previous host, Ryan Tubridy.
Advertising agencies were yesterday tripping over themselves to heap praise on the figures and D'Arcy's performance. Dublin agency Initiative, for example, said: "Ray D'Arcy's impressive performance as host generated the second highest ratings of any TV broadcast this year, after the live final of You're A Star."
According to Initiative, the key to getting strong TV audiences nowadays is whether something is live or not. "The success of the two-night live show further highlights the importance of live TV in today's declining TV environment. Four of the top five TV programmes in 2004 were live TV broadcasts. Digital TV, the prevalence of repeats, the emergence of personal video recorders and today's hectic lifestyles means that people today aren't as likely to sit in to watch the latest drama or soap as they were 10 years ago."
Ad revenue rises
New figures from the National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI) for the period between January and June show the newspaper sector increased its advertising revenue by €28 million compared to the same period last year.
This represented a 13 per cent increase on last year's figures. In total, advertisers spent €170 million during the period. Of this figure, almost €90 million was spent by advertising agencies, with about €80 million coming from direct sources, mainly in the form of classified advertising.
August Christmas
RTÉ is currently awash with money, at least according to its rivals, like TV3. The station is certainly going to report a strong surplus for the year, but just how confident is it about its prospects?
Well, very confident, according to a note sent out recently to advertising agencies around Dublin.
RTÉ Radio has announced that it is now selling the airtime for all of October, November and December across all stations. This would appear to be further evidence of the healthy demand in the market place.
According to Saor Communications, the Dublin agency: "Historically RTÉ Radio only sells one month ahead across all their radio stations but they are claiming high airtime demand has resulted in the opening up of all their fourth quarter inventory," it said.
New Kilkenny title
While bidders continue to examine the books at the Leinster Leader, there is a looming circulation war building up in Kilkenny. The long established title in the area, the Kilkenny People, is being challenged by a new title - the Kilkenny Voice.
The new arrival hits the streets on Tuesday, September 6th. It will be a 96-page full-colour product with a target circulation of 20,000. It will come out on a Tuesday, one day before the Kilkenny People. Already high-profile columnists like DJ Carey have been signed up by the new title. The hurler is also a shareholder in the paper.
Interestingly, some of the people involved in the new paper are former staff of the Kilkenny People (now owned by UK group Johnson Press).
This includes Jimmy Rhatigan, who worked as editor of the People for 35 years and who is now the editor of the new publication. Also on board with the Voice is John Shiels, a former manager with the Sunday World and David Haugh, a former financial controller with Wilson Hartnell Public Relations Ltd.
The new title is facing a tough battle, the incumbent paper posted a circulation of 18,179 in the second half of last year. The new paper is setting itself an ambitious target of beating this and getting 20,000 sales each week.
The recent experience of the Athlone Voice does not bode well for the new title, but the promoters of the Kilkenny Voice believe there is room in Kilkenny for two titles.
The population of Kilkenny city is 20,735, but there are estimated to be 189,985 people living within a 40km radius.
If the new title can find a home with some of these commuter belt readers it will have a better chance of survival.
Comedy figures
Paramount Comedy, which is owned by media giant Viacom, has reported its first figures for the Irish market. The channel started accepting Irish advertising in May and it has been steadily trying to chip away at the bigger players such as RTÉ, TV3 and Sky since then.
Among its key market segment, the 15-34 year-olds, it has achieved a market share of 1.14 per cent. This is clearly small, but still bigger than the share of Sky Sports 2, Setanta and Nickelodeon. The channel may find it hard to grow much beyond this unless it airs some Irish programming.
Emmet Oliver can be contacted at eoliver@irish-times.ie
