April 12th, 2012 Posted in Appointments, Ireland, Movers & Shakers
President Michael D. Higgins has appointed Sarah (née Hegarty) Martin as his Communications Manager.Sarah has spent over seven years working with RTÉ, first as Corporate Communications Co-ordinator, and then for over six years as Senior Press Officer with RTÉ Radio.
She managed RTÉ’s communications strategy for Medium Wave closure and brand development and communications for launch of RTÉ’s digital radio services as well as day to day media management.
She joined RTÉ from international public relations agency, Fleishman Hillard Dublin, where she worked for two years after completing a stage (traineeship) with the European Commission Representation in Dublin.
She has a MSSc in Communications, Public Relations and Advertising from the University of Ulster. She speaks fluent French and Spanish having completed her primary degree in languages at NUI Galway.
March 20th, 2012 Posted in Broadcasting, Ireland, Stats, TV
Official Nielsen figures for 2011 show that Irish TV viewers are watching more television than ever before.
Last year the average Irish Adult watched 3 hours 37 minutes of TV every day, almost half an hour more than they did five years ago.
Despite anecdotal reports of increased viewing via laptops, smartphones and tablets, the average Irish Adult viewer still spent 25 hours 19 minutes each week watching programmes on their television sets. Over 93% of that time was spent watching programmes live.
The country will become almost entirely digital by the end of October when the analogue terrestrial signal is turned off.
Source: TAM Ireland
March 6th, 2012 Posted in Ireland, Social Media, Social Network
Abair Leat, the first social network entirely dedicated to the Irish language launched last week with the aim of normalising the use of Irish in casual settings.
With integrated translation and spelling, the site makes it easy to use Irish whether you’re fluent or can’t say much more than the classic ‘an bhfuil cead agam dul go dti an leithreas?’.
Users are asked to post and comment using at least 70% Irish, only using English words for non-standard spelling or when there is no Irish equivalent. Version 2 of the network is already in the planning stage and is due to launch this summer. New features will include an integrated thesaurus and speech synthesisier.
A smartphone app is also set to launch by the start of the next school year, by which time the site’s founders hope to be heading towards 50,000 members.
Give it a go here. http://abairleat.kontain.com/
Source: Silicon Republic
March 6th, 2012 Posted in Digital comms, Internet, Ireland, Online, Politics
The controversial Irish version of SOPA is to be made law, it was announced last Thursday.
Minister for Research and Innovation Sean Sherlock said that all interested parties should now focus on ‘making Ireland a model of international best practice for innovation, and ensuring that our copyright laws facilitate the achievement of this goal’. He added that he had no intention of curbing the freedom of Irish internet users.
The new copyright law will allow record labels and other copyright holders to seek legal injunctions against ISPs that allow access to websites that contain copyrighted material. It follows on from a 2010 High Court case in which EMI sought an injunction against UPC, ordering it to block access to sites that allow illegal downloading.
The Stop SOPA Ireland group had been campaigning in the run-up to last week’s events and collected over 80,000 signatures on a petition. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has also voiced disapproval of the law, saying ‘we have thrown the copyright issue over to the courts without any public policy guidance to help them decide the case law’.
Source: The Irish Times
February 17th, 2012 Posted in Ireland, Journalism, Media, Newspapers, Stats
The latest Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) has revealed that newspaper readership in Ireland has declined by a further 2.4% overall 
this year compared to last year.
2.89 million adults (or 81% of the adult population) surveyed at the end of 2011 had read a print edition of a newspaper during the survey period compared with 2.96 million adults the previous year.
The Irish Independent is the most read newspaper with an average daily readership of 477,000, while The Irish Times fell behind with 310,000. The Irish Daily Star grew its readership to 373,000, while the Daily Mirror also enjoyed an increase from 192,000 to 214,000.
Of the Sunday titles, the most popular is Sunday Independent with 939,000 readers followed by the Sunday World with 819,000. The Irish Sunday Mirror and the Irish Mail on Sunday saw an increase, probably due to the closure of the News of the World.
Millward Brown Lansdowne, which compiled the report, suggested there was some evidence of a tendency among readers of daily titles to shift from regular to occasional readership.
Source: The Irish Times.
February 17th, 2012 Posted in Internet, Ireland, Online, Travel
They don’t always turn up on time a
nd their fare increases may have caused consternation among Dublin commuters in recent months, but at least you can now browse Facebook while you’re stuck on a bus in the morning.
Dublin Bus spent the past week trialling a free WiFi service on select routes and if all goes well, plan to have rolled out the service on its entire fleet by the end of the year. This means that commuters in the city will be the first in Europe to get free internet access on bus services.
It’s all funding dependent, however, and it seems like they’ll opt for whichever company works out the cheapest – so the connection quality still remains to be seen.
It follows on from Iarnroad Eireann already offering WiFi on most of their trains (all trains including DART will be covered by the end of the year) and the National Transport Authorities’ plans to make the Luas internet friendly soon.
Source: Joe.ie
February 16th, 2012 Posted in Ireland, Magazine, Newspapers
Irish Photographer Kenneth O’H
alloran’s work has been featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine and as their cover story in last weekend’s edition.
His shots of property expos and showhouse openings and the subsequent ghost estates, as well as landscape shots of the Aran Islands and his ‘Life After Death’ project were all featured. The accompanying article by John Jeremiah Sullivan tells the recent story of Ireland from the author’s personal perspective.
As well as the print edition the New York Times have also posted a slideshow of some of pictures used with a narration by Kenneth himself (it’s well worth a listen). Times blogger Stacy Baker has also written a post about the photographer that gives an insight into his work and career.
You can see more of Kenneth’s work on his website.
Source: New York Times
February 7th, 2012 Posted in Ireland, Media, RTE, Radio, Stats, trends
The latest JNLR results have r
evealed that 85% of all adults in Ireland listen to the radio on a daily basis. National radio holds the majority share position in the areas of Dublin (57.1%), Multi-City areas (52.1%), and the North-East/Mid Region (51.7%). Local/regional radio is in the majority in other areas of the country.
Local radio is thriving in the country, with 40% of the local adult population tuning in, especially in the south and west. Stations with the majority share of listeners include Highland Radio, Tipp FM, Radio Kerry, and Shannonside.
RTE holds most of the top positions in the most-listened-to programmes, with Morning Ireland, Liveline, Marian Finucane and Miriam Meets among them. Ryan Tubridy has also managed to gain listeners for the first time in recent reports, adding 1,000 daily listeners.
Source: Adworld
January 12th, 2012 Posted in Ireland, Journalism, Newspapers
On Tuesday journalist Mary Raftery lost her battle with cancer at the age of 54.
She was best known for her ground breaking work on the issue of child abuse, including the documentary ‘States of Fear’, the book ‘Suffer Little Children’ and the programme ‘Cardinal Secrets’, which led to setting up of the Murphy Commission to investigate clerical abuse.
She continued her work in this area right up until last June.
We’ve created a Storify tribute for Mary. Please view it here:
http://storify.com/mediaflash/mary-raftery-1957-2012
November 2nd, 2011 Posted in Campaign, Charity, Ireland, Social Media, Stats
Irish charities are leading the pack when it comes to organisations using social media, with over 90% having an online presence.
A survey recently conducted by The Wheel asked 178 charity organisations about their online habits as part of the Better Together campaign, which aims to let community and voluntary groups showcase their work by posting videos on their website.
Here’s some of the encouraging statistics to come out of the survey:
81 % have a presence on Facebook
43 % are tweeting regularly
31 % use YouTube
29 % are on Linkedin
23 % have upwards of 1,000 followers.
6.2 % have more than 5,000 followers
72 % say social media has had a positive impact on their relationship with stakeholders.
Clearly charities are seeing the benefit that social media can have for organisations in creating awareness and support. The Better Together campaign are running an online video competition running at the moment where visitors can vote for their favourite video with the winner receiving a €10,000 donation. Click here to vote.
Source: Silicon Republic
