Media & Marketing: It was always going to be hard for the two Sky News Irish bulletins to attract a sizeable audience with RTÉ and TV3 already offering well established bulletins in their prime time schedules.
Sky News thrives on big global news events and its ratings, including in Ireland, were very high during events like 9/11, the Asian tsunami and the London bombings of 2005.
But when news is scarce the Irish bulletins find it harder to produce high figures. However, this week BSkyB decided to simulcast its Irish 6.30pm bulletin on Sky One for the next few weeks.
This should place the bulletin in front of a much younger audience than is possible with mainstream Sky News. But as everyone knows, younger audiences traditionally shy away from news programmes.
The simulcast will run until February 24th and will provide an opportunity to broaden awareness of the service following the launch of the new-look Sky News last autumn. But the key aim will be to get new, younger viewers to sample the service. Episodes of Malcolm in the Middle will be replaced by the simulcast, although they will run later in the week.
The 10pm Sky News Ireland bulletin will continue to be broadcast on Sky News only. Sally Arthy, managing editor Sky News Ireland, said this week the change would allow Irish viewers to "try out the service". This week advertisers were somewhat sceptical about younger viewers engaging with the service at this time.
Tony Newby, broadcast director with Universal McCann, which buys airtime for a large number of clients, said he had not seen numbers this week, but he would be surprised if the bulletin managed higher ratings than Malcolm in the Middle or the Simpsons would normally achieve.
"As a station that spent most of last year haemorrhaging young adult ratings I don't think that its necessarily the right move. And the fact that Sky One has shown sport, documentaries and now news in the past few months does raise the question of exactly which direction they are taking in order to boost their appeal," he said.
Meanwhile, this week Sky announced two new services for Irish customers. Sky by Broadband allows the company's digital customers to legally download a wide range of movies and highlights from Sky Sports and watch them on their PC for no extra cost. The Sky by Mobile service allows Sky subscribers to download a large range of content to their mobile phones.
Channel 6 boss
Channel 6, which is expected to launch within weeks, has hired its first managing director, Martin Drake. Mr Drake was previously a director of finance at the Discovery Networks Europe. He has also spent time at the BBC, Channel 5 and the Orbis Satellite TV Network in Italy.
Bridge goes ad free
While the rest of the city has become colonised by advertising, Dublin Corporation has decided to free up one of the city's older bridges.
All advertising panels are to be removed from the "loop-line" train bridge located just above Butt Bridge beside the Custom House and Liberty Hall buildings. AFA O'Meara, a Dublin agency, this week reminded its clients of the bridge's place in Irish advertising history.
"It has carried some famous advertising signs since the early 1960's. Some well-known advertisements to appear on the bridge down through the years include Jacobs biscuits, Guinness Stout and Glorneys Hardware shop on Moss street".
As for the outdoor industry, the loss of the bridge space does not mean a reduction in the number of sites available in the city. Other space is expected to be created to replace the panels near the DART.
New year market
The new year has got off to an impressive pace for most media owners. Radio and TV stations claim they have very limited space available for the remainder of the month.
According to Saor Communications, the Dublin agency, the TV market in particular seems to be experiencing a very strong month with January sale advertisers taking the lion's share of the space. These advertisers have come from a range of industries including retail, motoring telecoms and dietary foods.
Most TV stations are close to shutting their sales books for the month, which must be welcoming news to the investors behind Channel 6 which has pencilled in a spring launch.
The cinema market is also reporting strong demand for January and February.
As far as broadcasting is concerned, the national radio stations are practically all sold out for the month and are already reporting strong demand for February. Demand for online space on leading websites is also off to a healthy start with a multitude of advertisers taking space. The whole market is expected to get an additional boost come September when the Ryder Cup takes place.
Saor said the daily press market seemed to have the best availability for the remainder of the month, mainly driven by new colour printing flexibility which allows titles to increase and decrease pagination to suit demand.
Giveaways show no sign of ending either with the Star (Sunday edition) giving away a free copy of OK! with the paper every month.
In Britain the kind of giveaways papers are turning to are changing. The Sunday Telegraph, for example, is giving its readers a free guide to choosing independent financial advice with the paper this Sunday.
