RTE's 'Prime Time' wins ratings to be among winners of 2005

Media&Marketing: As this is the last column of 2005, it is appropriate to pick out the biggest winners and losers in the worlds of media, advertising and marketing. No list can be exhaustive, but it was certainly a dynamic year in the sector.

Among the winners were:

RTÉ Prime Time: After years of budget cutbacks and downgrading in favour of the newsroom, RTÉ's current affairs output managed to impress the critics and win strong ratings. Whereas other broadcasters, including the BBC, have dropped current affairs programming from their prime time schedules, RTÉ has developed Prime Time Investigates as a vehicle for some of its most hard-hitting reporting. Programmes on anti-social behaviour, alleged price-fixing in the car trade and the Leas Cross nursing home set the news agenda in 2005 and undermined the assertion that the public is not interested in news or current affairs programming.

The shareholders of the Leinster Leader group: 2005 was once again the year of the provincial newspaper. While several national titles in Ireland and the UK lost thousands of readers, the local newspaper sector appeared to be immune from the wider disenchantment with newspapers. The decision of UK firm Johnston Press to shell out €138.6 million in cash for the Leinster Leader group took valuations to new highs. At 6.6 times revenues some said the price was the result of irrational exuberance, but the shareholders of the newspaper group were not too worried. Among them was accountant John McStay who walked away with €8 million and solicitor Anthony Collins who benefited to the tune of €13.8 million.

Carat Ireland: This advertising agency already has true scale by Irish standards. Along with its parent, Aegis, it has been the highest spender in newspapers for several years. When it comes to buying space and airtime, scale is increasingly the key requirement. While expensive research capabilities are also needed, being part of an international network also gives an agency an advantage with multinational brands. Carat started the year with clients like Vodafone and Bank of Ireland. During the year its parent managed to snap up Brindley Advertising which holds the lucrative Government advertising account. As if that wasn't enough, towards the end of the year Carat secured the National Lottery account, worth several million euro. It will handle media buying and planning, while DDFH&B will handle the creative work.

Online media: For the last few years online media and internet advertising sites were viewed with great suspicion by traditional media. This view still pertained at the outset of 2005, but by the end of the year the smart money was starting to shift online. The trend was no doubt driven by blunt comments by Rupert Murdoch, no less, who said: "Certainly I don't know anybody under 30 who has ever looked at a classified advertisement in a newspaper. With broadband they do more and more transactions and job seeking online." If anyone thought these were meant to be purely provocative, Murdoch's News Corporation spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying the online social networking site MySpace. Meanwhile, Daily Mail and General Trust decided to go down the same route and splashed out £48 million sterling on the Primelocation property website.

Eddie Hobbs: No list of media winners in 2005 could leave out Rip-Off Republic host Eddie Hobbs. He was derided by some for engaging in over-the- top verbal flourishes, while others questioned his bona fides to be a consumer champion based on his links to former investment adviser Tony Taylor. But the viewers remained loyal and Hobbs managed to pull in a staggering audience of 807,000 for the last episode of Rip Off Republic. Not that everyone was happy.

Former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive Sean FitzPatrick had this to say about the phenomenon: "This is not good. I'd genuinely worry that much of the nonsense he peddled would gain common currency and the wholly unbalanced Hobbsian perspective on Ireland of 2005 would fuel the anger of many of those who failed to benefit from our economic success thus far." Ouch.

Among the losers were:

Aengus Fanning and the Sunday Independent: The Sunday Independent is used to handling crisis. As Ireland's best-selling newspaper, controversy is its very lifeblood. But the paper's disastrous decision to publish an inaccurate front page lead story about the circumstances of Liam Lawlor's death in Moscow saw the paper in the eye of a public storm even its owner, Independent News & Media, found hard to control. An investigation was carried out, but to the surprise of many no senior editorial heads rolled. The fact that several other newspapers printed similar reports may have saved the relevant editorial personnel.

But it didn't stop editor Aengus Fanning issuing an apology contained in a statement which read: "Hindsight has shown this information to be incorrect and I take full responsibility for proceeding with the story in the manner in which it was published."

Marian Finucane: People said it would never happen. RTÉ would never break up its traditional prime time Radio One morning lineup. But in 2005 the key editorial bosses at RTE radio - Adrian Moynes and Eithne Hand - took the plunge and re-configured the schedule. Marian Finucane left weekday radio to the surprise of many and switched over to weekend broadcasting. However Pat Kenny survived the changes and his Late, Late Show chalked up decent ratings in 2005.

Sunday Tribune: The Sunday Tribune has rarely been a strong financial performer, to put it mildly, but in 2005 its commercial travails slipped into the background as the paper was engulfed by internal upheaval. The managing director and editor-in-chief Jim Farrelly left the paper to pursue "his own business plans" and he was replaced by Michael Roche. Into the editor's chair stepped Noirin Hegarty and out went Paddy Murray. As if this wasn't bad enough, the paper's sales slipped to historic new lows as competition intensified from the Sunday Times and the Sunday Business Post.

Irish Ferries's public relations strategy: The team behind the Irish Ferries public relations strategy of late 2005 certainly won few plaudits. The company's decision to outsource large parts of its operations on the Irish Sea may or may not have had merit, but its core argument about costs in the industry was never properly or convincingly presented. Eamon Rothwell, chief executive of the company's parent Irish Continental Group, decided not to do radio or television interviews at key points in the crisis, confining himself to newspaper pieces in which he berated what he saw as one-sided coverage. Even Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, who has been known to voice the occasional unpopular remark, found fault with the company's public relations, when he said: "The trade unions don't have a bloody case - 90 per cent of the workers in this company have voted to accept the very generous redundancy packages. The problem is that Irish Ferries have not adequately made their case."

Initiative's loss of the Unilever account: Along with Proctor and Gamble, the Unilever account is regarded as highly lucrative and highly prestigious by Irish advertising agencies. But 2005 was the year it shifted to Mindshare from Initiative in a move that shocked the market. The account is believed to be worth about €18 million. It must be said that Initiative responded well to a setback which had more to do with international realignments than anything else.

Conrad Black: The former owner of the Daily Telegraph was accused in 2004 of running a "corporate kleptocracy". But in 2005 things did not get better. Lord Black of Crossharbour has now been arraigned on fraud charges that could carry a 95-year jail term. A trial date has been set for March 2007.