TELEPRINTER:Sponsored time checks on RTÉ's flagship radio news programme Morning Ireland are set to begin next month as the broadcaster has lined up the first taker for a new sponsorship opportunity during "the .58 ad break", or the commercial break that takes place just before the top of the hour.

“It’s almost 7 o’clock on RTÉ Radio 1, time to . . . (plus sponsor-approved tagline),” is how RTÉ Media Sales suggests the recorded time check stings should work.

“Sponsorship stings may be scripted to highlight various branding messages,” it adds.

The Morning Ireland package is for three weekday stings at 6.58am, 7.58am and 8.58am ad breaks, which has an advertised fee of €110,000 for a three-month period.

Tara Farrell, sponsorship manager at RTÉ Radio, says the time checks offer is “demand-driven”, as Morning Ireland is the most-listened to radio show on Irish radio (with 441,000 listeners) and its audience tends to spike in the run-up to the hourly news summaries.

Short-term messages

RTÉ does not make Morning Ireland itself available for sponsorship, but has offered up elements such as traffic and weather to sponsors in the past. Listeners are “well used” to sponsor messages, says Farrell.

“Ideally, the sponsorship would be for three months, but obviously the way the market is now, we have to work with clients – they may only want to do it for one month,” she says, citing sponsors who want to time their exposure around the relaunch or upgrade of their product.

Although the Morning Ireland-specific offer is new, RTÉ has previously sold a schedule-wide time checks offer that includes a sting at the 6.58 am ad break leading into the programme. This was previously taken up on a short-term basis by the St Vincent de Paul and eMobile.

Farrell says the kind of advertisers looking for “business content” also tend to be attracted to radio sponsorships such as George Lee’s Saturday programme The Business – currently held by Vodafone – and the weather bulletins, which do not have a sponsor at present.