Aimee Whelan

“Exterion Media in Ireland and Northern Ireland has re-branded as Global. Global is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in Europe and acquired Exterion Media in 2018 but the Irish operations continued to trade under the well-known Exterion brand. Since the 2018 acquisition, Global has grown its outdoor advertising portfolio across the island of Ireland as well as the UK. Global also owns a portfolio of radio stations in the UK including stations such as Heart, Capital, Smooth and Classic FM. It also owns the digital  advertising exchange, DAX. In Ireland, the company is responsible for marketing and managing the CIÉ Group’s Outdoor advertising estate – the largest of its kind in the country – and includes Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann and Iarnród Éireann. The extensive inventory comprises both traditional roadside and commuter billboards, transit and digital outdoor formats.

Global in Ireland has long-term partnerships with Croke Park and the GAA in the management of their stadia advertising inventory. A significant part of the company’s portfolio is invested in premium retail malls and shopping centres, delivering the country’s largest shopper audience footfall figures. These include ng Dundrum Town Centre, The Square Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, ILAC Centre, Pavilions Swords and Mahon Point.  The company’s portfolio also includes Aircoach, Dunnes Stores and Supervalu. In Northern Ireland, Global has more than 5,000 sites made up of traditional roadside and retail billboards, digital screens and buses reaching individuals in every postcode area across Northern Ireland. It is the sole provider of bus advertising in the region with an exclusive partnership with transport provider, Translink. The company manages Belfast City’s largest on-street digital screen network through partnerships with BT and Urban Innovation, placing advertisers in the heart of the city centre.”

FROM IMJ ADWORLD DEC 17th (if you haven’t subscribed yet, you should! It’s free at adworld.ie) – Ciaran is well known to us and a welcome appointment.

“Ciaran Cunningham, the former CEO of Carat and Dentsu X has been appointed as the new chief executive of Radiocentre Ireland, the new radio industry initiative that has been established by RTE and Independent Broadcasters of Ireland (IBI) to promote radio as a marketing medium.

Cunningham is one of the industry’s most experienced media practitioners having worked for Carat since 1998 and more recently as CEO of Denstu Media Brands. Prior to joining Carat, he was media director of Initiative. “I am delighted to be taking on the role of Chief Executive of Radiocentre Ireland,” Cunningham says.

“My ambition is to use my experience to help shape the radio sector for the challenges and opportunities ahead. Radio, in all its forms, is incredibly popular with Irish people. It is also a very powerful medium for advertisers to grow their brands and services and I will be seeking to make radio an absolutely essential choice for advertisers into the future,” he adds.

According to John Purcell, chairman of Radiocentre Ireland: “Ciaran’s appointment as Chief Executive is great news for Radiocentre Ireland. This is a hugely exciting project which sees all Ireland’s radio operators coming together to promote the unbeatable reach and the unique relationships enjoyed by Irish radio with our millions of listeners. Ciaran brings tremendous media experience, passion for radio and a wealth of insights, ideas and creativity to the role. We’re delighted to have him at the helm as we set out on our mission to spread the good news about Irish radio.”

Radiocentre Ireland was set up earlier this year by RTE and IBI. The board is made up of three representatives from RTE and three from Independent Broadcasters of Ireland, the organisation representing Ireland’s 34 independent radio stations operating at local, regional and national level.”

The publisher of Mediahuis Ireland, Peter Vandermeersch, has hit out at RTÉ and claimed the broadcaster’s privileged position within the Irish media is, “Killing a little bit the entrepreneurship of the sector”.

Mediahuis Ireland, which in 2019 purchased Independent News and Media, originates from Belgium and Mr Vandermeersch said the group was “amazed at the power of RTÉ” in Ireland. “Everywhere you have public services but here in Ireland RTÉ is protected in a very strong way and sometimes it’s killing a little bit the entrepreneurship of the sector,” he told Taking Stock. “But it’s [something] we knew when we came here”. The Government has commissioned a report into the future of media in Ireland and Mr Vandermeersch said he hoped it would recommend “a playing field that is level”. “I’m an advocate for strong public players but strong public players shouldn’t harm the private players.

“Here we see a market in which RTÉ gets lots of money from the Government and gets lots out of the advertising market… And you have the strange situation for most markets in Europe, where people start in public [media] services and when they really want to make money they go to the private sector.

“Here in Ireland, people start with private players and when they really want to make money, they go to RTÉ! It shows that the market is not functioning as it should.

>“So we hope that from that report… that the Government tries not to be a Government of RTÉ… [so we can] create a level playing field in which Newstalk, The Independent, RTÉ can all have their role.” Mr Vandermeersch feels that the Irish Government should not be advertising as much as it does with RTÉ:

“In Belgium for example, there are very strict restrictions about advertising on the public service. Here, for people, like me… It’s very strange to see in the middle of the nine o’clock news [the Government] advertising on public television. Public television shouldn’t do these things. Public television should probably be paid for by the taxpayer and then leave the advertising market to the private players.” Mr Vandermeersch also predicted that the digital news market would continue to eclipse the print market. “I still believe digital is the future. We shouldn’t forget print. We [Mediahuis Ireland] still have The Sunday Independent, today more than 500,000 Irish people are reading The Sunday Independent – that’s quite something!“. Print will stay there, definitely on Saturdays and Sundays. We know how it works at the breakfast table with your partner, you have the papers with all the supplements and the coffee and the croissants, it’s a wonderful experience.” Mr Vandermeersch concluded:

“For centuries, people wanted it [news] on paper. Now, definitely the people under 45 or 50, want it on their mobile phones. And on the weekend, they want it more and more in podcasts. “So we really have to balance that whole transition and how long it is, the seven days a week paper, I can’t say… Somewhere at the end of the road, print will disappear, definitely Monday to Friday, and be replaced by digital.”

Paddy Power cashes out of RTÉ live televised football deal ahead of new betting ads ban

RTÉ has become the first high profile victim of new advertising rules, brought in ahead of gambling regulation, with Paddy Power ending its sponsorship of live televised football. The Flutter Entertainment-owned betting company sponsored the station’s 2021 international men’s soccer coverage, but yesterday confirmed it has “concluded” its partnership with RTÉ. The news comes ahead of new guidelines introduced by the Irish Bookmakers Association (IBA) covering ‘whistle-to-whistle’ advertising, which will be banned from January 1. ‘Whistle-to-whistle’ covers the duration of live broadcast event, from five minutes before the start of a sporting occasion to five minutes after, and includes breaks of play and half-time adverts, as well as pitch-side LED and other forms of marketing.

While the deal with RTÉ only covered this year’s football fixtures, the firm will not be extending the arrangement into 2022. The company has been examining the use of its ‘Take A Break – Safer Gambling’ advertising, but it’s unclear if such marketing breaches the IBA’s code which comes into force on January 1. The IBA spent the weekend examining the text of its regulations, which also includes a ban on credit card betting, after it was unable to confirm if advertising safer gambling still equates to ‘whistle-to-whistle’ marketing.

Paddy Power paid RTÉ a six-figure fee to sponsor international football this year, which included the rights to host the PP logo on screen during games, beside the clock and live-score graphic. While it recently removed the logo from the screen during play, ads featuring Paddy Power open and close each ad break for the duration of live football coverage. The ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ban by betting companies does not include horseracing or greyhound racing, but does impact the highly lucrative football market – a significant area for ‘problem gamblers’. Confirming that Paddy Power has ended its partnership with RTÉ, the company added: “Paddy Power don’t just support the incoming whistle-to-whistle ban as a company, we have already taken a market leading position on this intervention. We took the decision to voluntarily implement a pre-watershed whistle-to-whistle ban on advertising ahead of Euro 2020 which applied to any adverts run on RTÉ in the interim.”

“We also moved to use all existing slots available to us pre and post-match to exclusively promote our ‘Take A Break’ Safer Gambling tool during Ireland’s final four matches in the Men’s Fifa World Cup Qualifiers” RTÉ refused to comment on the matter, saying it did not wish to speak on commercial issues. All independent and leading brand bookies have signed up to the Code for Safer Gambling, except for William Hill. Minister-of-State at the Department of Justice, James Browne – who is driving and leading legislative change in the betting industry through the introduction of gambling regulation in 2023 – has also recently called on William Hill to adopt the new rules.

SEAN MURRAY

Today, two more elements of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill come into effect.

The bill, which was passed by the Dáil in 2018, contains a number of provisions aimed at reducing alcohol harm in Ireland.
Some of the measures are already in place, while there is no clear timeline for others. Here’s a breakdown of the new measures, and what they’ll mean in practice.

What changes today? Sections 15 and 16 come into force today. Both are concerned with the advertising of alcohol at sporting events. Under Section 15, all alcohol advertising in/on a sports area during a sports event is prohibited. Furthermore, alcohol advertising at an event for children, or at which the majority of participants or competitors are children, is also prohibited.

Alcohol Action Ireland pointed to a recent analysis conducted by the University of Stirling, which found that a child viewing a match broadcast during the 2020 Six Nations rugby championship was likely to receive alcohol promotion every 15 seconds.

AAI said that the new measure has the potential to reduce by half the exposure of children to such advertising.

And what else? Section 16, meanwhile, prohibits the sponsorship of certain events, where that sponsorship has the aim or effect of promoting an alcohol product or alcohol brand, or the consumption of alcohol. It also prohibits the sponsorship of events aimed at children, events at which the majority of participants or competitors are children, and events that involve driving or racing motor vehicles. Flouting these laws could result in a fine of up to €250,000, three years in prison, or both, according to the legislation.

Stephen Donnelly, the health minister, said these restrictions are designed to “protect our children from exposure to alcohol marketing as part of their everyday lives”.

What has already been enacted? One visible enactment of the Public Health (Alcohol) Bill, which came into force one year ago today, was the ‘booze curtain’ in shops and off-licences that serve alcohol. It means that alcohol products have to be kept in a separate area from other items in a shop. In many supermarkets, this has resulted in small doors between the alcohol and other items. In January, the use of bonus or loyalty card points to purchase alcohol at a reduced price was also banned.

Short-term promotions on alcohol, at a reduced price for three days or less, were also prohibited. Other measures enacted in 2019 prohibit the advertising of alcohol within 200m of a school, playground, or early years service. It’s also banned on trains and buses and in the cinema.

What’s still to come?

Some of the most significant aspects of the bill are yet to be enacted. Those include wholesale changes to the way alcohol advertising on television can be operated. Under the proposals, brands will become much more restricted in what they can show in adverts for alcohol. They will be able to show details of the drink itself, an image of the brand, its price, an “objective” description of its flavour, colour, and smell. It is likely that the narrative-heavy adverts for alcohol would no longer be possible under the terms of the bill. A broadcast watershed for alcohol adverts is also contained within the bill. On television, adverts for alcohol will be banned between 3am and 9pm. The provision of health warnings on all alcohol labels is also planned. Minimum-unit pricing on alcohol, also contained in the bill, is set to take effect in January next year.

TikTok surges ahead of Snapchat and Instagram in battle of app

TikTok surges ahead of Snapchat and Instagram in battle of apps TikTok’s growing dominance among social media apps is underlined in new data on downloads in Ireland. The numbers of new users signing up to TikTok for the first time has increased more than 600 per cent since 2017, while the same figures for Snapchat showed a decline by 36 per cent. According to Sensor Tower, an app analytics company, about 726,000 people downloaded Snapchat from Irish app stores in 2017, but this dropped to 466,000 last year. An estimated 179,000 people downloaded TikTok in 2017, while this increased to 1.3 million last year. For Instagram there were about 566,000 new users four years ago and 529,000 last year.