Irish viewers follow England at World Cup

Media & Marketing : While a variety of non-sporting TV programmes continue to pull strong audiences for this time of the…

Media & Marketing: While a variety of non-sporting TV programmes continue to pull strong audiences for this time of the year, the viewing figures for the World Cup are in a different league altogether.

The early leaders in terms of viewing were matches involving Brazil, but this has now changed. The England game against Sweden pulled in a very high audience of 539,000 on Tuesday night.

The first two England games were at earlier times so audiences were lower, but the size of the Sweden audience suggests that England matches are regarded by Irish viewers as strangely compelling. It is not just the action itself either - the pundits assembled for the game, including outgoing NewsTalk man Eamon Dunphy and Graeme Souness, drove the audience up to 751,000. This makes it one of the most popular programmes of the year.

Haughey audience

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While argument continues over the political and economic legacy of Charles Haughey, the viewing figures for the former taoiseach's funeral indicate Haughey possessed, right to the very end, major pulling power.

His burial, including a graveside oration by the Taoiseach, managed to get a peak audience of 355,000. The average audience came to 266,000, which made it the second most watched daytime programme of the year, according to advertising agency Initiative.

Only the St Patrick's Day parade could boast a bigger daytime audience. Not surprisingly though, the audience had an older profile, with 65 per cent of viewers over 55. Jack Lynch's funeral in 1999 managed to pull in a slightly larger audience of 275,000.

Irish agency wins

An Irish advertising campaign highlighting the power of newspaper advertising has won the prestigious gold award at the Cannes International Advertising festival. The agency, Chemistry, is the first Irish agency to win such an award. Its clients include Irish Life, Kerry Foods, NTL and Ulster Bank.

Chinese site bought

Ethnic Media, which publishes Ireland's only magazine for the Chinese community, Tiao Wang, has purchased the website, IrelandBBs.com, which serves the Chinese community's online needs. The site concentrates on people studying abroad. Students hoping to get a visa to come to Ireland can read accounts of Irish life written by Chinese students already based here.

Among those who have taken space on the site are Tesco, UCD's Quinn School of Business and American College Dublin.

The price paid by Ethnic Media was not disclosed, but the company said the site had 22,000 registered users. Ethnic said the projections for online advertising were far more encouraging than mainstream media. Managing director Niall Kehoe said: "Lets see how it goes. The key to any expansion is down to predicting market trends and that's a notoriously tricky business."

Teen surfing habits

A new survey on the online media usage habits of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 has found that more than 60 per cent of teenagers have visited online social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace.

The survey found the majority of people who visited such sites also signed up as members. The study was carried out by Burst Media among 1,800 teenagers.

AFA O'Meara, a Dublin advertising agency, said this week that despite their popularity amongst teenagers, many advertisers have taken a decision not to place advertising on such social networking sites because of "the negative publicity" associated with them in terms of potential sexual predators visiting such sites.

Energy campaign

In September, Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey is expected to kick off a major public awareness campaign encouraging people to become more energy efficient.

Over the next few weeks, advertising agencies are expected to troop into his department to pitch for the contract. Government contracts tend to be popular and there will be no shortage of applicants.

It is going to be a tough sell though. Energy growth is expected to rise by between 1.1 and 2.3 per cent per annum for the foreseeable future.

While there is probably much the average householder can do to make their home more energy efficient, what about the other sectors - transport, electricity generation and manufacturing? Is there any chance of less cars on the road? Probably not. Will there be less buses or trains in use? Probably not. Dublin airport passenger numbers are rising by 15 per cent a year. With all this growth, the opportunities to become more energy efficient are probably limited.