Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Having failed to knock Hot Press off its perch, State magazine has changed its business model and will now be distributed for free. Una Mullally gives her two cents on the story. Personally I think it’s a smart move - there’s a gap in the market for a quality lifestyle magazine after Mongrel decided to close their doors and frankly people (especially young adults) don’t want to pay for magazines anymore.

Magnet Networks has launched an innovative new broadband package, taking advantage of the new broadcasting legislation. The company is offering all consumers who sign up to its 24MB and 10MB packages a free IPTV package comprising of five TV channels (RTÉ, RTÉ2, TV3, TG4 and Bubble Hits) and 12 radio stations. SiliconRepublic has more on the story.

The European Commission has pointed out that the Irish media have become more Eurosceptic and warns that “Ireland’s ‘changing media landscape’ between 2002 and 2008 has implications for public opinion about the European Union.” The report effectively infers that the influence of UK media is effecting the public’s opinions about the EU. The Irish Times has more on the story.

The Parole board has cricitised the media coverage of high profile prison releases in Ireland (via RTE.)

RTE hopes to replicate the success of Sofia’s Diary. The broadcaster has commissioned the same production company behind the show to create an Irish version called Aisling’s Diary (SiliconRepublic has more on the story.) Interstingly the show will be broadcast as three minute segments before the popular soap, Home & Away. In the UK Sofia’s Diary is broadcast as a regular half hour show after five mini-episodes appear online during the week.

The Guardian reports that LinkedIn has launched an advertising system. The paper points out that “targeting could be based on the type of industry - such as aviation, pharmaceuticals or IT - the level of seniority, size of company or the gender of users.” LinkedIn is already an amazing HR tool, suddenly PR companies can run actually recruitment campaigns for clients and quantify the results.

City Channel has been awarded a new TV license for a southern Ireland service (via RTE.)

Finally, the Times reports that “Google has taken another step towards its stated goal of indexing the world’s information by scanning newspaper archives and making them searchable on the internet.“