RTE losing market share among children

Media & Marketing - Emmet Oliver: The assertion that children are watching more television than ever before may be a myth, according to new figures.

Back in 1998, children spent 26 hours on average in front of the television each week, but this is now down to 14 hours per week (or two hours per day), according to figures from Dublin-based advertising agency Initiative. In its latest bulletin, it says this trend is "promising for parents, but not so much for advertisers".

This reduction in overall viewing is not the only noticeable trend happening in the children's TV market. Our younger citizens are also displaying disloyalty to the established channels.

RTÉ 2 remains their favourite channel by some distance, but its share of children's viewing has significantly decreased in the last seven years. RTÉ 2 now has 18.5 per cent share of viewing among children, but this is down from 25 per cent back in 1998.

There is little doubt one of the factors reducing its share has been the growth in Ireland of Viacom's Nickelodeon channel, which now commands a 4.5 per cent share. Other channels, presumably including BBC, have a 23.5 per cent share.

The splintering of the children's audience appears to have hit RTÉ's flagship programme, Den2, hard. Initiative says its ratings have plummeted in recent years.

"Den2's individual programmes recorded an average total viewing reach of 9 per cent among children in 1998, compared to only 3.3 per cent in 2004," it states.

However, RTÉ has achieved some very high children's ratings with some of its programmes over recent years, including The Late Late Toy Show, Home & Away and Friends. All of this is good for business and RTÉ is expected to report a surplus of between €6 million and €7 million for 2004.

Are Setanta's ratings offside?

Setanta Sports, which is available for free on NTL and on a pay-per-view basis with Chorus and Sky, has raised concerns with AC Nielsen about the ratings recorded by the station.

The station has been available on a seven-day basis since February, but its ratings are throwing up anomalies according to Setanta Sports' commercial director, Dave Smyth.

"We are getting positive feedback from advertising agencies about our product and it is unacceptable we are not seeing that reflected in the official data. There are a number of trends coming through which suggest there is something radically wrong with the way our figures are compiled," he said yesterday.

"For example, the figures are telling us that nearly 80 per cent of our audience between the age of 15 and 34 is female. So unless there is something very strange going on, that is clearly not correct," Mr Smyth said.

Mr Smyth has already had one meeting with AC Nielsen about the issue and will meet them again this Friday.

He said while the Nielsen system had proven robust, there might be an issue surrounding the number of NTL homes surveyed as part of the Nielsen exercise. At present, 360,000 homes have access to Setanta on the NTL basic package.

UTV races ahead with figures

Setanta got some good news a few months ago when it won the rights to air live Formula One action. The contract was previously held by RTÉ.

So far, it seems that viewers in the Republic have been prepared to switch channels to watch their favourite sport.

According to advertising agency Saor Communications however, this has not just benefited Setanta. Since RTÉ lost the contract, UTV and Setanta have the rights to show the live action, while TV3 have the rights to show highlights.

"Traditionally, RTÉ always won the viewers in Ireland with UTV coming a poor second, but this year UTV are outright winners with TV3 and Setanta trailing," said the agency.

Figures from the Bahrain Grand Prix race on April 4th make for interesting reading.

The race in 2004 attracted 112,000 adults to RTÉ 1. However, the 2005 race brought 35,000 adult viewers to UTV and 1,300 adults viewers to Setanta. A further 45,000 adults tuned into TV3 for the highlights programme.

It's the last word for B of I

Bank of Ireland business banking said yesterday it had renewed its sponsorship of the breakfast show with Eamon Dunphy on NewsTalk 106.

The sponsorship began on March 2004 and the latest deal runs until March 2006. The bank will get advertising, promotional slots and credits within the breakfast show and across NewsTalk's schedule.

RTÉ gets the big picture

From next week, advertisers will be able to see their work in a much wider perspective.

From Monday, RTÉ is moving to widescreen transmission for commercial breaks. According to Dublin agency AFA O'Meara, "the move is in line with industry standards and is part of an organisational move towards widescreen transmission".

• Emmet Oliver can be contacted at eoliver@irish-times.ie