Morning television sits down at the breakfast table and digs in

Media & Marketing: Until now, the dominance of prime time radio programmes such as RTÉ's Morning Ireland has left little room in the market for breakfast television programmes such as TV3's Ireland AM.

But this week MCM Communications, the media arm of McConnells, reveals figures which suggest that breakfast television in the Republic may yet be capable of building some kind of market share.

Back in 2002, breakfast TV had only a 1.6 per cent share of the total daytime audience, but this has now grown to 3.6 per cent. Back then TV3's Ireland AM was the number one show with a 33 per cent share of the overall breakfast audience. This now stands at 42 per cent.

While still very much the poor relation, breakfast television is inflicting some damage on radio audiences in the morning.

The most recent Joint National Listenership Research (JNLR) survey showed that the people controlling the household budget had drifted away from radio for the first time.

While 76 per cent of this key group were still listening to radio in the morning, the number was down from 85 per cent.

Sky insert blunder

NTL has for several years enjoyed one major competitive advantage over Sky in the Republic - the presence of UTV and Channel 4.

Because of rights issues, neither UTV nor Channel 4 is available at present as part of Sky Digital, whereas NTL Digital is in a position to include them.

In much of its advertising NTL trumpets this fact, so it was surprised a few weeks ago to find Sky also mentioning these channels as part of its digital offering in two press inserts.

Now the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) has stepped in and asked Sky why this happened.

Sky has explained that UK marketing material was transferred in error to the Irish market.

The inclusion of the two channels was "unfortunately overlooked", said Sky Ireland.

According to the explanation to the ASAI, the oversight was an isolated incident and only affected these particular inserts. In mitigation, Sky said it would be introducing "internal procedures" to make sure that there would be no repeat of the incident.

TG4 holds serve

The decision by TG4 to acquire the exclusive rights to tennis at Wimbledon looks set to provide a boost to the station as it prepares to become an independent operation.

The station is currently part of RTÉ, but the Minister for Communications, Noel Dempsey, plans to make it an independent statutory body. Deloitte and Touche is advising the Minister on the best way to achieve this.

How important Irish language programming will be when the station goes it alone is unclear, but its decision to import international sporting events such as Wimbledon and the Tour de France is paying off in audience terms.

Saor Communications, the Dublin advertising agency, remarked this week that TG4's entire market share may increase because of the tennis. Most of the Wimbledon coverage aired in the afternoon and early evening and reached an audience of between 20,000 to 25,000 adults. The men's final on Sunday attracted a higher audience, with 5.4 per cent of all available adults tuning in, representing 32,000 adults. Of course these are audience numbers - what's not clear yet is how much extra advertising revenue was generated.

Eager readers

Newspaper promotions are inherently risky, mainly because it is virtually impossible to predict how many readers will take an interest.

This is the painful lesson being learned by the Daily Express at the moment. A few months ago, the paper offered its readers a £10 (€14.71) cruise, but now it turns out that 2,500 readers cannot be accommodated and will have to be compensated instead.

Readers will be offered an alternative cruise, a holiday or a long-haul flight as compensation.

Last year 40,000 eager readers took up the promotion. A front page advert stated: "For every reader. Cruise for £10 includes flights there and back, cabin, meals and taxes, unbelievable but true."

A shortage of cabins and a hurricane in the Caribbean meant thousands of readers missed out on their cruise and since then a large number of reader complaints have landed on desks at the Press Complaints Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK. Ouch.

'Haughey' watch

While it is now facing something of a media backlash, the Haughey series from Mint Productions managed to hold strong audiences right to the very end.

The last episode on Monday, July 4th was watched by 542,000 viewers, or 44 per cent of all adults available at the time.

Young watch BBC

Traditionally Irish viewers, when faced with a choice of two channels showing the same programme, watch it on Irish television, primarily RTÉ.

However, over the weekend, the trend was reversed in relation to the Live8 concert.

While RTÉ 2 broadcast the show and interviewed concert goers, the coverage only managed an average audience on the night of about 133,000. In contrast, the Irish audience for the BBC coverage was very high, averaging about 242,000 viewers throughout the night.

The worrying part for RTÉ was that younger viewers drifted off and went for the BBC coverage.