Eighty per cent of viewers watching television between 7.30 p.m. and 8 p.m. watch Coronation Street. In landing the soap, TV3 has earned a huge boost for its ratings and has made given maximum impact to its evening schedule. A big promotional campaign to lure Coronation Street viewers away from UTV has seen TV3 giving away a car during the ad break of each of the first 12 episodes. The test now for TV3 will be to hold on to the audience beyond the initial give-away gimmick. This will require strong scheduling. TV3 will need to offer programming before and after the slot that will allow it to hold on to the Coronation Street audience and, correspondingly, the advertisers. Aidan Dunne, media director with McConnells Advertising, says that at least 20 per cent of the audience will not transfer to TV3. "Many people will go to UTV, but others will just watch whatever RTE 1 has to offer instead."
Matthew Salway admits the station is unlikely to draw the same numbers as RTE did for the long-running soap, but he says: "We are creating a strong hour by running Emmerdale and Coronation Street in the same block."
TV3's scheduling around the soap has got off to a good start. The station is showing its higher-rating programmes like Mad About You and Charmed in the slots immediately after the programme.
RTE, on the other hand, has done little so far to compete. The move of Eastenders to RTE in March may change that, but at present RTE seems to be conceding the 7.30 p.m. slot and concentrating its efforts on the ratings battle later in the evening. However RTE claims that it is not taking the move lying down. RTE Radio One is considered to have the "best practice" model of scheduling in its 7.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. programming - "prime time" for radio. The station manages to hold on to its audience from Morning Ireland right through to the end of Liveline by broadcasting a series of strong programmes in between, such as the Marian Finucane and Pat Kenny shows. Head of schedule planning and promotions with RTE television, Andrew Burns, says the radio formula is "exactly what we try to do on RTE 1". He says the Wednesday evening schedule, starting with Nationwide at 7 p.m. and running up to the Nine O'Clock News, is a prime example of strong scheduling. This line-up does include the popular Irish-made soap Fair City, but it has, of course, lost its other crowd puller, Coronation Street.
Burns says that the RTE scheduling is about selling "a whole package. We build up an audience as the night goes on using the centre breaks to trail the next programme," he says. RTE is also currently experimenting with putting trailers for the next episode on the end credits of Fair City.
The strength of RTE's scheduling, he says, is to secure programmes before the other stations and "to promote them aggressively to keep people interested".
