Media & Marketing: After nine months in the Irish market, it seems the two freesheets, Metro and Herald AM, have significantly dented the sales of the main tabloids in the Republic, rather than the broadsheets.
Advertisers this week described new ABC figures, covering January to June of this year, as "highly interesting". Up to now it was not clear who would suffer from the arrival of the freesheets, broadsheets or tabloids? But it appears to be the latter, based on the figures for the first six months of the year.
The Irish Daily Mirror's sales fell 6.5 per cent to 73,754. The Irish Daily Star fell 3.9 per cent to 97,654, while the Irish Sun was down 7.9 per cent at 110,191.
While it is hard to be precise about how much of these falls are caused directly by the two freesheets, media buyers appear to have made up their minds. Precision Media this week said: "Circulations for the main morning red tops are down year on year, which is probably a symptom of the increased availability of freesheet newspapers in the marketplace, as well as the recent launch of the Irish Daily Mail with its reduced cover price and promotional giveaways."
Metro and Herald AM are putting about 119,000 additional papers between them - Herald AM distributes just over 63,000 and Metro gives out nearly 56,000 - onto the streets of Dublin and surrounding counties every day. While these readers may not have previously had a newspaper reading habit, it is likely that some of this group previously purchased a tabloid.
Ironically the success of Herald AM, originally meant as a "spoiler" against Metro, is hurting the Irish Daily Star. Both Herald AM and the Star are owned or jointly owned by Independent News & Media.
While the Star's weekday sales appears to have taken a knock, it received better news for its Sunday edition, where sales were up by over 10,000 copies to 58,209. The Sunday tabloid market was more stable than the daily market, but there were still large drops for the News of the World and the Sunday Mirror.
Figures for Irish newspapers will be released in a few weeks.
MCM retains AIB
A key account belonging to AIB, worth about €7 million a year, has been retained by MCM, the media buying and planning arm of McConnells. MCM has suffered some account losses over recent months, but the retention of the AIB account provides a decent fillip to MCM.
The AIB account is likely to grow in scale this year as the bank is a key sponsor of the Ryder Cup. Several agencies pitched for the business and MCM made it through to the final shortlist of two. It was informed this week by the bank it had retained the account.
Zidane's sponsors
Described as a villain by some and a hero by others, French football star Zinedine Zidane has retained the support of his commercial sponsors, a key concern for the professional footballer, retired or not. Adidas has decided to stand by its man and has launched a website - www.mercizidane.fr - so his millions of supporters can thank him for his services to football.
Zidane has been an ambassador for Adidas for the last 10 years and the company has decided to continue with his current contract up until 2017. Maybe they are banking on him taking up a prominent managerial job.
It is estimated Zidane earns about € 8.5 million per year from advertising contracts with Danone, France Telecom and insurers Generali France.
Advertising boom
The Republic's radio stations, television channels and newspapers are enjoying an advertising boom their jealous UK colleagues can only dream of.
While UK advertising gurus like Martin Sorrell (of WPP) are hoping the UK market will take an upward swing, the Irish market remains strong and those UK companies that invested here over the last few years are seeing their investment pay off.
Advertising - admittedly at rate card values - is up 7.3 per cent so far in the newspaper sector, 13.1 per cent among TV channels and 12.1 per cent among radio stations. Outdoor and cinema formats are also benefiting from all the activity. At rate card values, a staggering €436 million has been spent in newspapers so far this year.
The television figures while very rosy, are probably overestimating the growth somewhat as the compilers of the data, the Institute of Advertising Practitioners, Ireland added some new services recently, which may be boosting numbers.
Nevertheless, Ireland is one of the fastest growing advertising markets in Europe, although like much of the economy here, a sizeable portion of the spend derives from the property sector.
'Sportsman' funding
Only launched a few months ago in the UK and Ireland, the Sportsman newspaper is already seeking fresh investment, according to UK media reports.
Staff at the Sportsman were yesterday expecting to hear about their future, following a meeting about the paper's financial situation. Executives are attempting to put together an extra funding package of up to £4 million (€5.85 million). A small number of redundancies could be part of the package.
Circulation has failed to reach a target of 40,000. The gambling and betting title failed to reap the expected circulation rise from the World Cup.
A new chief executive is being sought to replace Max Aitken, who left suddenly last month.
