Media & Marketing: Since its first broadcast in late March Ireland's newest TV channel, Channel 6, has struggled to make an impact in its first few months of operation, at least in terms of ratings.
New figures from AGB Nielsen show the station, which is backed by the Gowan Motor group and the Barry family from Cork, capturing just a 0.5 per cent share audience share. This is based on all adults. It improves slightly when measured among 15 to 34-year-olds, where it has a 0.7 per cent share.
While very much in its infancy, the channel faces two significant problems. One is the sheer proliferation of services. Nielsen itself is now tracking viewership figures among 18 stations, and the vast majority of these are actively taking advertising revenue from the Irish market. Ireland is believed to have one of the highest numbers of television services per population in Europe.
The second problem for the channel is finding a way to make itself unique in programming terms. A large segment of the programming carried on the station is either available elsewhere at present or has been in the past. One example of this is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which airs on Channel 6 and Sky One, albeit at different times.
Ironically the few Irish-made programmes on Channel 6's schedule tend to go out at non-peak times. For example, Take Six Review, hosted by Irish presenter Taragh Loughrey Grant, aired last night at 11.30pm.
Despite this the station will feel that getting 0.7 per cent market share - however low that may be - is something to build on for the future among younger viewers. Sky One, a similarly positioned station, only has a 2.5 per cent market share among younger Irish viewers.
McGinley cuts it fine
These must be nervous times for the senior management over at insurance company Allianz Ireland. The company sponsors golfer Paul McGinley, who currently lies in 10th position - the last qualifying position - in the Ryder Cup standings, so McGinley will be cutting it fine.
McGinley has currently amassed 1,455,992 points and has a gap of 119,087 over England's Paul Broadhurst. With five more counting weeks remaining before Europe's team is decided at the BMW International in Munich, McGinley needs to keep bagging points.
His success on the fairways of Europe is of great interest to Allianz which is believed to have invested €2 million in their latest sponsorship deal involving McGinley, although the company have declined to comment on the figures invested in McGinley.
While the company is a partner and official insurer of the tournament, much of its marketing activity has been based around McGinley.
However Allianz probably should not get too nervous. Ryder Cup European captain Ian Woosnam this week indicated that he would like to see Irish golfers involved, possibly regardless of their ultimate score. Woosnam has the power to pick two "wild card" entrants.
"You would want to have Irish people in the team and if those two players [ Padraig Harrington and McGinley] dropped out of the team and were next on the list, you would seriously be looking at them for picks," he said this week.
"I've spoken to Paul McGinley, he's on about 1.4 million points at the moment and he'll have to get up to 1.6 million or so to ensure he's safe. The only way to do that is play good golf," he added.
Mainstream media hungry for web outlets
The insatiable appetite of mainstream or traditional media organisations for web-based news and information services appears to have no limits.
The Financial Times, itself under growing cost and sales pressures, this week purchased the online corporate finance news site Mergermarket for £101 million (€150 million).
The site offers historical data, news and comment on mergers and acquisitions from 160 journalists in 31 countries. Founded in 2000, its customers include 29 of the world's top 30 investment banks.
Its not just the mainstream media that wants to buy this kind of site. One of the losing bids was reportedly submitted by General Electric.
Meanwhile the social networking site MySpace this week notched up its 100 millionth customer. The site is now integrated fully into Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, but this close association with a "big bad" media conglomerate does not appear to have put off its younger users.
Irish Press manages to register 2005 profit
The Irish Press may no longer be publishing any national newspapers, but the company's activities are still sufficient to generate turnover of €2 million. The Irish Press Group results for 2005 show a pretax profit of €285,000, compared to a loss the previous year of €373,000.
The directors are proposing to pay a dividend of €0.15 cent per share, which should benefit chairman Eamon de Valera who holds 464,803 shares. This would give him a gain of almost €70,000 if the dividend is approved at the annual general meeting.
Magnet applies to run digital terrestrial TV
Magnet Networks has submitted an application to operate the state's new digital terrestrial television service. A trial of this service is expected to begin shortly and the Minister for Communications, Noel Dempsey, may make an announcement later this week.
Magnet Networks is submitting an application to become the multiplex programme content manager during the trial of the digital terrestrial television service. The company has applied for this trial stage with the intention of, in time, becoming a commercial operator of a national system.
This is the first step in what Magnet believes will be the start of the changeover from analogue to digital in Ireland.
Commenting on the application, Charlie Ardagh, Magnet Networks' spokesperson, said: "Magnet Networks considers the DTT trial as a major step towards bridging the digital divide and providing freedom of reception and freedom of access to information. We want to be the people who help Ireland meet the EU Commission's analogue switch-off target of 2012 with plenty of time to spare.
