Barb is to start measuring TV viewing on PCs, laptops and tablet computers this year, following the introduction of a web TV-viewing meter to UK households.
The meter will initially be distributed to 100 Barb panel homes over the second half of 2011, to gauge its impact and enable the industry body to make improvements. Barb will then extend its use across up to 1,100 homes during 2012. An estimated 2,500 people will ultimately take part in the measurement process.
Barb said the rollout would be done in a “staged approach to ensure that the standards and quality of the core Barb service are not jeopardised”.
Bjarne Thelin, Barb’s chief executive, said: “We will continually consider and verify the web TV-measurement technique, so that we can confirm the appropriateness of this approach for Barb.
“The prospect of a measurement which enables web TV viewing to be examined alongside television set viewing, from a single source, will have a number of applications. It’s likely that the greatest initial learnings will come from data aggregated over time.”
The news follows a year-long test project that ended in May. The trial helped Barb identify areas for improvement and to adjust the software accordingly.
After 168 years of publication the Irish edition of the News of the World has come to an end along with its parent operation. The final edition of the paper rolled off the presses on Sunday July 10th. Prior to its departure, the paper had a weekly circulation of 124,000.
The title employed 22 people full-time and a further half dozen part-time staff, mostly in its editorial division. Its staff included high profile crime writer, Paul Williams, and political writer, Declan Ferry.
The final edition of the paper carried the headline, “Thank You and Goodbye”, superimposed on top of a collage of past front pages. We would like to say thank you and farewell to the News of the World and wish all its staff the best for the future.
IMAGE Publications has won the contract to publish Aer Lingus’ in-flight magazine Cara. The title is the latest addition to the publishing house’s ever-expanding portfolio, which currently includes IMAGE, Image Interiors and Living. Appearing in every in-flight pocket of every Aer Lingus flight, Cara is Ireland’s best-read magazine. It reaches an audience of mainly ABC1 readers, of whom 51 per cent are male and 49 per cent are female. Image Publications plan to evolve the title with Frances Power (former Travel & Features Editor of IMAGE Magazine) at the helm. The re-energised magazine will include a mix of travel, arts, design, fashion, sport and business that aims to speak to every Aer Lingus passenger. So not only will Cara be a more compelling read for Aer Lingus passengers, it’s set to be an even more valuable advertising platform for savvy business people looking to promote their business at home and abroad.
RTÉ Radio has been honored with the prestigious Broadcaster of the Year Award at the 2011 New York Festivals Radio Awards. From 183 finalists spanning 26 countries, the New York Festivals’ Grand Jury selected RTÉ Radio as the overall winner. This is the first time in the New York Festivals’ 54 year history that an Irish radio station has won the acclaimed status of Broadcaster of the Year at the Festival.
In addition, RTÉ Radio programmes took home a further 16 awards, including seven awards plus a Grand Award for RTÉ Radio 1’s Documentary on One, six awards for RTÉ Radio 1’s Drama on One, one award for RTÉ lyric fm and one award for RTÉ Gold, one of RTÉ Radio’s seven digital services. Clare Duignan, Managing Director of RTÉ Radio mentioned: “For 54 years the New York Festivals Awards has recognized the world’s best programmes. This year, not only have RTÉ Radio 1, RTÉ lyric fm and RTÉ Gold won a total of 16 awards, but the Grand Jury, comprised of top-level industry professionals from five continents, have crowned RTÉ Radio as the Broadcaster of the Year. It is a real achievement: seven awards plus a Grand Award for Radio 1’s Documentary on One; six awards for Radio 1’s Drama on One; one award for RTÉ lyric fm and one award for RTÉ Gold. Not only do these awards confirm RTÉ Radio’s excellence in public broadcasting, they place RTÉ Radio among the greatest of our public broadcasting peers internationally. When you look at the breadth of the wins, from drama to documentary, music to history, sport to health, you get an insight into the variety of genre offered by RTÉ Radio. And the number of crafts which have been so richly rewarded – editing, writing, sound, narration and direction – reminds us that great crafted radio can only come from that elusive alchemy between skill, artistry and vision. My warmest congratulations to all the winners, and to all who work in RTÉ Radio, the New York Festivals Broadcaster of the Year 2011.”
The Irish language television channel, TG4, has agreed a new three-year deal with Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup tournament organisers, ERC, to broadcast highlights of European club rugby’s two premier competitions. TG4’s exclusive highlights coverage in Ireland will kick off next November when the 2011/12 Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup season gets under way. ERC’s tournaments are the latest addition to TG4’s expanding rugby schedule which already includes the RaboDirect Pro 12 and deferred coverage of this Autumn’s Rugby World Cup. The station, which pioneered television coverage of schools rugby in Ireland, also has an extensive portfolio of Gaelic games and other live sports, including the National Hurling and Football Leagues, the All Ireland Under 21 Hurling and Football championships, the Club Championships in Hurling and Gaelic Football, the All Ireland Ladies Football championship as well as global brands such as the upcoming Wimbledon tennis championships, cycling’s Tour de France and Aussie Rules Football. Pól Ó Gallchóir, Director-General of TG4, said: “We are delighted to have agreed a three-year deal with ERC for coverage of both the Heineken Cup and the Amlin Challenge Cup. The Heineken Cup is the most prestigious European club rugby competition, and with all four Irish provinces in the tournament for the first time next season, this is a major opportunity for TG4 to further develop our rugby coverage.”
Derek McGrath, ERC Chief Executive, said: “As the Heineken Cup and the Amlin Challenge Cup go from strength to strength, we are pleased to be entering into a new relationship in the Irish broadcast market.”
RTÉ had a very impressive performance in May for key programmes like Eurovision, Magners League Final, Champions League Final and Heineken Cup Final delayed highlights. The performance of these programmes helped to reduce the decline in viewing from the good weather. The Eurovision was watched by an average of 1,010,600 Adults. The average viewing share for this audience was 64%. It is the highest performing Eurovision since 1997.
RTÉ showed a double header of sport on Saturday the 28th May with Magners League Final and Champions League Final spread over 6 hours of broadcast. Magners League was viewed by 58,300 young Men between the age of 15-34, delivering a viewing share of 48% for this audience. RTÉ had acquired shared viewing rights from Setanta to show the games this year with TG4. The Champions League Final was viewed by 67,000 young Men 15-34 but delivered a lower viewing share of 42%. Heineken Cup Highlights broadcast on RTÉ2 on the 21st May (Sky Sports have the rights to transmit the game live). Show was viewed by 32,000 young Men 15-34 delivering a 18% viewing share.
This year’s Eurovision song contest took place in Dussledorf, Germany and had every Irish man, woman and tween enthusiastically singing along to Jedward’s entry ‘Lipstick’. Interestingly Eurovision 2011 was the highest performing NON SPORT programme for RTÉ2 as far back as 2002 looking at all Individuals. Outlined below are some further Eurovision statistics that are based on average viewership unless stated;
- 757,700 individuals (18.6 tvrs) watched eurovision. Viewing share for this audience was 46.1%
- 641,000 of these were Ads 15+ (11.7 tvrs). Viewing share was 44.4%
- 357,00 were wmn 15+ @ 45% viewing share
- 284,000 were men 15+ @ 44% viewing share
- 116,700 were children 4-14 @58 % viewing share
- 84,000 were Ads 1524 @ 58 viewing share
- 196,000 were Ads1534 @ 50.3% viewing share
- 98,000 were Men 1534 @ 52% viewing share
- 145,000 were Wabc1 @ 47% viewing share
- 94,000 were Mabc1 @ 43% viewing share
Overall, the show peaked in min by min performance at 1,266,000 for all individuals. 31.1 tvrs. This was at 21.55 pm. It peaked at 1,099,000
ITV and BSkyB have retained the rights to show Champions League games in a new three-year deal with Uefa, reported at £400m, which will result in ITV switching its live game from Wednesday to Tuesday nights.
The deal runs from 2012 to 2015. ITV, for an outlay believed to be close to £160m, will show 18 games per season, plus the Uefa Super Cup, in which the Champions League winners take on the Europa Cup winners. According to an ITV spokesman, the switch back to Tuesday was made with a view to having more consistent scheduling, given that most international football games are held on Tuesday nights. ITV has also secured enhanced new media rights, giving it the ability to sell advertising against online and mobile Champions League content. It will be able to broadcast matches on demand and show clips of all matches on mobile and video-on-demand.
According to ITV, audiences for this year’s knockout phase of the tournament have averaged 6.3 million viewers so far. Sky Sports will show 129 live Champions League matches each year, plus the Uefa Super Cup. It will have exclusive live rights to all Wednesday night games and all Tuesday night games, barring ITV’s pick. In addition to live rights and highlights, Sky Sports has also been awarded cross-platform rights for use on mobile and broadband.
Matches will be offered live on PC or laptop through Sky Player at www.skysports.com and on mobile devices through Sky Mobile TV.
TV3 hosted the first Irish seminar on Product Placement in Ireland in the Aviva Stadium on Thursday May 5th. Speakers on the day included Gary Knight, ITV Branded Entertainment and Digital Sales Director, who discussed how the UK have brought in the innovation to advertisers. Larry Bass, CEO of Screentime Shinawil, discussed his involvement in bringing product placement to Ireland. He made it known that a certain level of trust must be given by the client to the producers of the programme that they have paid to advertise in. Danny Townsend, EMEA and South Asia president of Repucom, discussed how paid for product placement is to be quantified.
Product Placement is not a new concept, TV advertising began in the US with product placement before spot advertising came about. This paid for product placement is still very evident in American programmes such as American Idol. The US also allow for advertisers to become involved with the scripting writing process. The US market for product placement is estimated to be near the five billion dollar mark. Between 2006 and 2009 there was an increase of 31% in the number of programmes that accepted paid for product placement. In the UK, Product Placement became available to advertisers on the 28th of February 2011. Pricing is factored using a Baseline 30” spot cost where the P.P score has been factored in. In advance Ofcom declared that a six week 20 second advertising campaign was to run on all channels with the aim of collectively hitting 85% of all viewers at least once to inform them that they would be subject to Product Placement in the near future. In programmes that feature paid for Product Placement a logo (P) is added to start and end of all programmes (with a minimum of 3 seconds on air)as well as a small logo which appears periodically throughout the programme. Note this does not apply to imported programming. Predictions are that the UK paid product placement market will reach £100,000,000 in 5 years.
As of 2nd of May Irish advertisers have been allowed to pay for product placement. Advertisers can pay for placement in films, sport, one off and serial dramas as well as light entertainment. If they follow the UK code to the letter then Chat shows are ok as long as they do not have more than 20% News related or current affairs style content. News, Current affairs, Documentaries, Documentary Dramas and Children’s programming are not allowed to have paid product placement. Currently alcohol, tobacco, HFSS (high fat, sugar and salt products), baby milk, medicine and gambling are not allowed to pay for product placement. Note the H.F.S.S restrictions only relate to the Ofcom governed channels in Ireland and RTE, TV3, 3E, TG4 and Setanta have no food restrictions in place for the foreseeable future.
The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland has given the all clear to paid product placement on Irish television. The change is one of a number to be included in the BAI’s revised General and Children’s Commercial Communications Codes. The move follows the introduction of product placement in the UK several weeks ago. According to the BAI, the revised Codes will be published in the coming weeks and will take effect from Monday 2nd May 2011.
According to the BAI it is to allow paid product placement in films (cinema releases and films made for television), sport, dramas (excluding docu-dramas) and light entertainment programmes (excluding certain types of talk/chat shows). It will also permit product placement on all television services including community, commercial and public service broadcasters.This includes the likes of TV3, 3e and RTÉ. In addition it will allow sponsors of television programmes to place their products and services in programmes that they sponsor, except in the case of children’s programmes. There are, however, a number of restrictions according to the BAI. The BAI has decided to prohibit paid product placement in all other programme genres, including children’s programmes and talk/chat shows containing more than 20% of news and current affairs content on a regular basis.
It will also apply the general and specific rules of the BAI’s commercial communications codes to all product placement arrangements. Broadcasters will also be required to comply with additional obligations relating how audiences are notified that a programme they are watching contains product placement. At the moment broadcasters are currently required to display a logo containing the letters PP before, and during, programmes containing product placement. They must also list in the end credits the names of companies that have provided products and services included in a programme. From May 2nd onwards, however, they will now be required to include a written announcement before such programmes and to promote to audiences, on- and off-air, the measures it uses to notify audiences that a programme contains product placement. The changes have been made following consideration of submissions received on foot of a public consultation completed last January.
Commenting on the changes to be introduced, BAI Chief Executive Michael O’Keeffe said, “The way in which Irish audiences watch television is changing and it is therefore appropriate that the BAI updates its rules to permit paid product placement. At the same time, paid product placement must be strongly regulated to ensure that the integrity and independence of programmes and programme makers is maintained. It is for this reason that paid product placement will be prohibited in a range of programmes and will only be acceptable when it complies with a broad range of rules intended to protect the interests of the audiences”.
