Media & Marketing:It's pass the parcel time again for FM104, one of the leading commercial stations in Dublin, and Today FM, one of only three commercial national radio stations. Less than two years after the two stations were subsumed into Emap, they are on the block again. Emap, run by chief executive Tom Moloney, trades media assets likes garages trade cars.
At a time when Emap's core business of consumer magazines and radio stations is finding growth difficult, Moloney's talent at flipping media assets is second to none.
Last August, Emap banked a profit of £237 million (€350 million), when Moloney sold Emap's activities in France to Mondadori. Selling FM104 and Today FM, as well as Highland Radio, won't reap such a big reward, but the gain will be substantial. The price mentioned for these three assets is around £130 million, a lot more than Emap paid just two years ago.
It suits Moloney to dispose of the stations now as Emap has embarked on a rationalisation programme that will cost an estimated €60 million. Emap is one of the UK's biggest publishers of consumer magazines in the UK, with titles like Grazia, Heat and FHM. But revenues are in decline and Emap is focusing on the internet and business-to-business sectors.
FM104 and Today FM aren't being sold because there's anything wrong with them. Quite the contrary: try to book the slot you want, and you'll have to book weeks, if not months, in advance.
Today FM has been closing the gap on 2FM to become the country's number one music station and FM104 is the most popular local station in Dublin.
Not for the first time, commentators are asking who benefits from the regulated radio regime? Do advertisers and listeners? As radio frequencies are a limited resource, the spectrum has to be regulated. But the diktats of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) hand effective monopolies to stations like Today and FM104. The result is rising costs for advertisers.
The BCI's regulatory hand is being felt by contenders bidding to operate a new multi-city, easy listening radio service aimed at over-45s. It has stated that opt-out advertising will not be an option for the successful bidder. Bidders had asked the BCI to allow them to offer tailored ad packages for the various cities covered.
But the BCI refused as holders of existing regional licences were not allowed to offer such ads. Apparently, the BCI feels a need to protect existing stations' advertising revenue. There might be a point in this if the taxpayer received payment for regulated airwaves. But the right to broadcast is handed out without cash changing hands. So while English plcs benefit, Irish advertisers pay through the nose.
Political view
Who is the most watched political party leader on TV? An analysis of who secured the largest share of TV viewers for his Saturday evening party conference speech give some indication. Opting for the most neutral approach, Saor Communications analysed the average share of viewing of all adults at the time of each leader's broadcast.
In first place comes Enda Kenny, whose speech secured 22.5 per cent of all adults watching TV last Saturday at 8.30pm. Slightly behind at 21 per cent was Bertie Ahern's speech the week before, followed by Pat Rabbitte, who attracted 19.2 per cent of viewers on February 10th.
In fourth place was Michael McDowell with 16.3 per cent on February 17th. Finally, the Green Party beat Sinn Féin as they received 12 per cent on February 24th, compared to Sinn Féin's 11.6 per cent on February 3rd.
Alarming ads
Security firm Top Security, has launched a €1 million TV and radio campaign for its alarm monitoring service. The ads, devised by ad agency Chemistry, start this week on RTÉ, TG4, Sky, Viacom, E4 and the Living Channel, while the radio campaign is scheduled to begin at the end of April.
Helene Devlin of Top Security said: "Past research has suggested that one in four alarms in Ireland have no monitoring service attached to them. This new ad campaign aims to highlight this fact."
Siobhan O'Connell can be contacted at siobhan@businessplus.ie
