Blurred Keys

Irish Times asks property agents to stop supplying false information

The mess that is the relationship between the property sector and the Irish media twists again, from the Sunday Business Post... 

Estate agents in Dublin have been accused of providing misleading sales figures to national newspapers.

The suggestion that agents were exaggerating the prices at which properties had sold, in an attempt to manipulate the market, prompted the property editor of The Irish Times to write to agents claiming that the unfair practice was compromising the newspaper.

It was a cover story on the Sunday Business Post yesterday. But, as Richard Delevan points out, the Irish Times really had nothing to say about it...

The Irish Times property editor, Orna Mulcahy, wrote a letter to Ireland’s estate agents, calling them out for attempting to manipulate the market by exaggerating (translation: lying) about the sale prices of houses bought by private treaty. Massive story. The Sunday Business Post — no stranger to property advertising — runs a big piece on it. It’s a major story on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

So this morning we searched for the Irish Times‘ own version of the story. None can be found...

Although, we would echo Delevan and say fair play to both the Times' property editor and the Post.

When PRs go blogging under cover...

...they're likely to get caught in Ireland. As Shane Hegarty points out on the Present Tense blog...

Somehow, Glenda Gilson seems an appropriate start, so you send out a press release in which you say that your bloggers are “…clearly nutty about the Irish TV Presenter & Model”. You make “limited edition Gilson fan packs”, which include t-shirts (”Just been on a benda with Glenda”) and rabbit on about your salty snacks while you’re at it. On the blog you put a gallery of things they’re “just nuts about”, featuring only pictures of their salty snacks (which, I’m guessing, are pretty much like any salty snack on the market).

And Mulley.net has more.

Irish Times' €5m revamp out Monday

Cover price to go up from €1.70 to €1.80 weekdays, and €2 on Saturdays

The Irish Times is due to start rolling out an extensive revamp tomorrow, but the move appears to be far short of a total redesign.

It will include a brush-up of the main section of the newspaper, an extra daily comment page, new supplements, and a redesign of current supplements. Extra pull-outs include a travel section and a weekly pictures supplement.

According to the Sunday Business Post, the makeover will cost €5 million. Readers will be asked to cough up an extra 10c on weekdays and 20c on Saturdays.

The revamp was handled by the Scottish newspaper design firm Palmer Watson. They have recently worked with the Irish Times on a redesign of the Ticket entertainment supplement and the design of the paper's Innovation monthly business magizine. 

With Irish newspaper, Palmer Watson have previously introduced a complete redesign of the Sunday Independent, worked on a relaunch of Galway City Tribune, on the now ill-fated Dublin Daily, and also with the Irish Independent injecting more colour into the paper.

Editor still “idealistic” after biz ed sacking

The editor of an Irish Sunday newspaper said she was “still as idealistic” as the day she started journalism even thought her business editor was sacked recently in questionable circumstances. 

In the January edition of the Dubliner magazine Noirin Hegarty, editor of the Sunday Tribune, said “I love what we do at the Sunday Tribune. I’m still as idealistic as the day I started in journalism and I believe in its role as the fourth estate”.

Asked how she can remain idealistic after the questionable sacking of her former business editor, Hegarty said “Thank you for your interest in the Sunday Tribune. This is an internal company matter bound by a confidentiality agreement. It is more complicated than it appears and I won’t be commenting further”.

Irish digital terrestrial TV trial gets sporty

Setanta Ireland and Setanta Golf channels are to be added to the digital terrestrial television trial in Ireland, the Department of Communications said yesterday, the new announcement must come as a blow to the cable companies NTL and Chorus who are currently advertising with a focus on the two Setanta sports stations.

The NTL and Chorus parent company, UPC Ireland, has previously warned the government not to “jeopardise” commercial investments.

Should internet advertisers push for independent systems of accreditation?

Adrian Weckler at yourtechstuff.com questions Bebo's high Irish visitor figures, asking "Are there really more people watching Bebo than the majority of TV shows?".

The real question here is why internet advertisers are not pushing for more independent visitor numbers accreditation systems, such as ABC Electronic, an offspring ABC the UK and Irish newspaper audit system?

Channel 6 takes on Nielsen, Sky, the world?

Sometimes reading just one newspaper isn’t enough...

COMMENT: If you were to have read Richard Delevan’s Publius in the Sunday Tribune you’d seen that the Channel 6 chairman Pat Donnelly was writing letters to Irish ad agencies dismissing the industry-trusted Nielsen audience measurement as "JUNK".

Irish magazines: they’re giving them away?

Newspaper and magazines are often accused of putting their own twist on circulation and readership numbers, but the Phoenix’s ‘Fit to Print?’ recently* had an interesting angle on the latest ABC results for Irish magazines.

The Phoenix says that the ‘devil is in the detail’, showing that Magill has an average circulation figure of 14,985 but only 4,672 copies are sold at full price tag of €3.25.

Meanwhile about two thirds of Business & Finance’s 15,638 circulation is sold at half price or less and just under 3,000 more are just given away as free subscriptions.

The Dubliner also sells less then one third of 10,038 at under the cover price – 3,000 are sold at less then 50%, 2,410 at less then 10% of the cover price, and 1,350 are – again  – just given away.

The Phoenix says (and the ABC report confirms) that its 18,154 circulation includes “no discount sales or free copies”. ABC’s 'Island of Ireland Report' for December 2006 includes ABC certified magazines, newspapers, and websites, it can be viewed in PDF form here, or by visiting abc-ireland.ie.

(*Phoenix dated Febuary 23 2007 – apologies for the lack of Blurred Keys updates in recent weeks)

Prangle.ie opens to journalists

Prangle.ie, Ireland’s latest press release service website, is now open to journalists.

With a mixture of print journalism and internet developing, the project is headed by Douglas Dalby (late of the Sunday Times), Fiachra Ó Marcaigh, Paul Clerkin, and Michael Cunningham.

The list of PR firms that Prangle have signed up includes MRPA Kinman, Q4, Drury, Murray Consultants, Slattery Communications, WHPR, Financial Dynamics, Edelman, FleishmanEurope and SimpsonFT.

In contrast to the existing Irish press release website, Prangle is login-based with free accounts for journalists and paid subscriptions for PR agencies.

Edelman Dublin start blogging

The Dublin office of PR giant Edelman has just launched a blog at edelmandublin.com/blog.

It’s currently at the early stages (while browsing, we even noticed expanding sidebar links), and that the content will be media focused.

“It'll typically consist of media news, stories and trends which grab our interest and contributions from various members of staff such as the piece on the site from Seamus Mulconry, our head of PA” commented Piaras Kelly, at Edelman Dublin.

Edelman’s clients in Ireland include Diageo, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sustainable Energy Ireland, Forfas and bmi.

Recently, on his personally blog, Kelly posted analyses of the Edelman Trust Barometer from Ireland. The results show that the media is the third lowest trusted sector, just above the banking and insurance industries.