Media&Marketing: Setanta Sports may be reaching a relatively affluent audience with its coverage of Leinster Schools rugby but building strong ratings for the coverage has proven a little trickier.
None of the games broadcast in the lead up to the St Patrick's day final has registered more than 1 per cent in terms of total viewing reach (TVR), advertisers report this week.
To get 1 per cent TVR, a programme must have an average audience of at least 37,000 viewers. The figures are from AC Nielsen.
However, the station will hope that the final between Blackrock and Belvedere colleges has generated strong figures. Figures for this game were not available yesterday from advertisers because statistics on the smaller channels only come out in two-week blocks.
This week, a leading media buyer with MCM Communications, which is linked to McConnells, described the figures from early rounds as "paltry".
However, a spokesman for Setanta explained that schools rugby coverage was very new and needed time to establish itself.
He also said that each schools rugby game was broadcast several times, which may have diluted the overall average. Setanta is available free with NTL and on a pay-per-view basis with Sky and Chorus.
Setanta has long maintained that covering the tournament is not costly and is more of a service than a money spinner.
While the schools rugby has failed to shine in the ratings, Celtic and Rangers games on Setanta have pulled in strong audiences, as has the motorsport programme On the Limit.
Meanwhile, the failure of the Irish rugby team to beat France in the Six Nations campaign dealt a severe blow to RTÉ's chances of having a real ratings winner with the Welsh game in Cardiff.
The prospect of winning a triple crown via the Wales match was always going to be a poor substitute for the Grand Slam, both in rugby and audience terms.
An average audience of 366,000 individuals tuned into the game, rising to a peak of 481,000. However, the game against England earlier in the campaign peaked at 774,000.
IN&M links papers
Staying with the oval ball, Independent News & Media (IN&M) has taken the unusual step of offering advertisers a chance to take space with their three main daily titles in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain.
This week, advertising agencies in Dublin were offered a chance to take space in a special British and Irish Lions rugby supplement to be included in all three titles - the Irish Independent, the Belfast Telegraph and the London Independent.
IN&M, which rarely offers promotions across the three papers, told Dublin agencies that space in the supplement could guarantee "over 1.5 million ABC1 sports fans, across three of the most respected newspapers in the UK and Ireland".
Colour page advertisements are being sold at about €12,000.
Bunworth venture
The former marketing director of Aer Lingus, David Bunworth, has teamed up with two other leading marketing figures to form a new marketing and branding company, Evotia.
The three principles in the company are Tony Brophy, the former marketing director of Bulmers; Janet French, former marketing and brand manager with Ciba-Geigy Chemicals in the UK; and Bunworth, who has held several senior roles in Ireland over the years.
He spent time at Esat Telecom under Denis O'Brien, but he faced an uphill struggle trying to turn things around when running Bewley's Cafes.
Evotia is offering to work with clients from the very start of the marketing process to the end.
Cinema goers rise
The latest cinema admission figures indicate that the dramatic growth of recent years is not going to stop.
There were 1.5 million cinema admissions in February, with the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers helping to drive up admissions by 15.8 per cent compared to this time last year.
The main surge in growth appears to be in Dublin, with almost 750,000 cinema admissions in the capital alone in February.
Eithne Billington, general manager of Carlton Screen Advertising, which handles advertising for more than 90 per cent of cinema houses, said that, if current figures continued, the Republic could match the United States in terms of admissions on a per capita basis within five years.
Emmet Oliver can be contacted at eoliver@irish-times.ie
