Media & Marketing Emmet OliverOne of Ireland's most prominent media analysts, Tom Harper of AC Nielsen, has plenty of observations to make on the Irish media and advertising landscape in the current edition of the British publication Admap.
Harper, who previously worked at Media Audits, predicts a wave of consolidation and fragmentation across the industry. He says buying power in the media is set to become concentrated in only a few hands.
"As with other media agency markets around the world, the Irish agency market will continue to change and in three to four years we may well be looking at just five to six media shops," he writes.
"These large agencies will control huge sums of advertising spend - a fact that will not go unnoticed by media suppliers. With this money comes the power to negotiate strong deals for advertisers," he adds.
Mr Harper says a period of stabilisation is on the way, with media buyers and planners learning to operate in a new, more competitive marketplace.
He says the largest uknown factor in the Irish market remains RTÉ.
"There will always be demand for local TV broadcasting in any country and Ireland is no different. The oddity of the Irish broadcast market is the nature of RTÉ. It does produce quality TV programmes viewed and desired by a large percentage of the Irish population."
But he cautions that the cost of producing these programmes is increasingly outstripping what people are prepared to pay. "If radical changes are not made to the RTÉ's cost base, or if the Irish public remains indifferent to funding RTÉ through tax increases," he says, there could be trouble.
"Then the next five years could see RTÉ continue as is - market leader with declining share and no room for significant quality changes in output."
He says TV3 has managed to establish a niche for itself and winning the rights to Coronation Street lifted its viewing figures significantly.
Harper says the increased choice available to viewers will chip away at RTÉ, UTV and BBC's viewing figures.
"This fragmentation could be a good thing for advertisers. It could lead to better targetting, more competition between sellers and less waste."
Listenership figures to answer questions
The long awaited Joint National Listenership Research (JNLRs) survey will be issued next week and stations around the State will be scanning the results nervously.
The data, provided by TNS MRBI, will show market share details for individual stations, but also for individual presenters.
Things to watch out for: how has Marian Finucane fared after signing a new contract with RTÉ only a few weeks ago? How is Today FM performing following some poor results the last time out?
Finally, how is NewsTalk doing after showing some encouraging signs in the last JNLRs?
When it comes to market spend, some stations are not hanging around waiting for the JNLRs.
Dublin station Q 102, for instance, formerly Lite FM, is already rolling out a summer promotion called Summer Stick Up, which involves cash giveaways and a chance to shop at Harvey Norman, the furniture and electrical store.
NewsTalk is also boosting its marketing efforts with a rolling advert for Eamon Dunphy's new prime show to begin in early September.
To the tune of David Bowie's Rebel, Rebel, listeners are heard praising the enfant terrible of Irish broadcasting.
Predictably the facet of his show they are most looking forward to is on-air controversy.
Brand spending under examination
MCM Communications, the media buying arm of McConnells advertising agency, has been putting some of the Republic's leading brands under the microscope.
Following on from Checkout's recent rundown of the top 100 brands in Ireland, MCM has calculated how many of these brands are supported by generous advertising campaigns.
The MCM survey shows an average sales to advertising spend proportion of 2.12 per cent. In other words, most brands are spending 2.12 per cent of their sales on advertising.
Brands which were well above this threshold were: Danone Actimel (5.97 per cent); Persil (4.35 per cent); Lucozade Sport (4.8 per cent) and Ariel (4.6 per cent).
The number one brand was unsurprisingly Coke with sales of €115 million and an adspend of €2.1 million.
The sectors which heavily spent were detergents (4.29 per cent), cereals (4.83 per cent) and pasta/rice (4.31 per cent).
TV ads to air on sets in ESB shops
In its current newsletter, Dublin agency AFA O'Meara reports on one of the more unusual advertising opportunities available from September.
The idea is simple. Put advertisements on the television sets on display in electronics stores.
Instead of the usual test-cards or live football matches, regular TV ads will be aired on sets in the ESB's 56 stores throughout the Republic. AFA estimate that in terms of potential audience size, more than 600,000 people visit the ESB retail chain every month.
A month's slot on the sets would cost an estimated €6,000.
Rebrand gets mixed welcome
Advertisers have been giving their reactions to this week's announcement of a rebranding for Network 2.
Most have expressed concern that RTÉ should not become pre-occupied with the channel's identity.
Programming is key appears to be message.
Martina Stenson, managing director of Universal McCann, said Network 2 had re-invented itself a few times since its launch and helped maintain a sense of freshness.
"It appears that the latest revamp will be quite dramatic with changes to content, presenters and channel look".
She said falling viewing figures partly brought about the changes. "RTE is obviously responding to the level of competition they now face in the marketplace - their share among their core audience of 15-34 years-old adults has fallen from 14.5 per cent in 2002 to 12.9 per cent by August 2004 and they need to halt the decline."
"The programming must be right - viewers watch programmes not channels, and regardless of a change in the channel name, look, presentation and content, if the programming is not right it really doesn't matter what the channel is called," she stated.
Kay McCarthy, deputy MD at McCann Erickson, said Network 2 had had a confused identity since its original birth as RTÉ 2 in the late 1970s.
Emmet Oliver can be reached at eoliver@irish-times.ie
