IRISH WATER SPENDS €650,000 ON ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN - Seven steps and three days from “cloud to glass”. Irish Water, the utility company responsible for developing and billing for water services, is launching an eight-week advertising campaign designed to persuade consumers that drinkable water doesn’t simply fall from the sky.
The public body is spending €650,000 to highlight the role “much-needed investment” will play in delivering a clean drinking water and wastewater supply, writes the Irish Times. Designed by Irish Water’s creative agency Rothco, the campaign will run across television, radio, press, out-of-home, cinema and digital media for a period of eight weeks, coinciding with the period in which the first water bills will be sent to households. Irish Water head of communications Elizabeth Arnett said the campaign was aimed at “everybody”, not just the households that have yet to register. The point of the campaign, which launches on television tonight, is “to highlight some of the challenges we have” in maintaining the water supply, she said.
***
AER LINGUS BID MAY DEPEND ON UK WATCHDOG, LAWYERS CLAIM - Aer Lingus lawyers have criticised Ryanair's attempts to retain its near 30% stake in the airline and urged the UK's competition watchdog not to risk Ryanair "impeding" a €1.4 billion sale of Aer Lingus to IAG. Aer Lingus has argued that the success of IAG's takeover bid may now depend on the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) moving quickly to force Ryanair to sell most of its 29.8% stake in the airline. The Irish Independent reports that in a searing submission to the CMA, Aer Lingus has accused Ryanair of engaging in "wilful misinterpretation and misrepresentation" of the facts in a gambit to prolong a legal battle to prevent the larger airline from being forced to reduce its Aer Lingus stake. But lawyers for IAG, which is headed by Willie Walsh and owns British Airways and Iberia, have pleaded with the CMA to refrain from appointing an independent trustee to effect the sale of most of Ryanair's stake in Aer Lingus, and instead grant Ryanair permission to sell its entire holding to IAG. However, the Aer Lingus lawyers have argued for that trustee to begin work immediately, and be empowered to sell the shares owned by Ryanair to IAG, "so preventing the risk of Ryanair impeding the IAG merger". Etihad boss James Hogan also said this week that the Gulf carrier would be willing to sell its near 5% stake in Aer Lingus to IAG, but that IAG has not approached it about the planned acquisition.
***
US STREAMING REVENUES OVERTAKE CD SALES - Streaming music services such as Spotify have eclipsed CD sales and are closing in on digital downloads as the largest source of revenue in the music industry’s biggest market, according to new data from the Recording Industry Association of America. US revenues from subscription streaming brands such as Spotify and Rhapsody and streaming radio services including SiriusXM hit $1.87bn in the US in 2014, a 29% increase on 2013 and equivalent to 27% of total music industry revenues. The Financial Times says that sales of CDs slipped 12.7% to $1.85 billion, even as the decline in total sales of physical formats was cushioned by the renaissance of vinyl records, which accelerated in 2014, with a near 50% jump in sales of LPs to $315m. Downloads have been the US music industry’s largest source of digital revenue for a decade but they peaked in 2012 and have been in decline ever since. In 2014 download revenues fell 8.7% to $2.58 billion, equivalent to 37%of total industry revenues. “The music business continues to undergo a staggering transformation,” said Cary Sherman, chairman and chief executive of RIAA. “Record companies are now digital music firms, earning more than two-thirds of their revenues from a variety of digital formats.”
***
BARRYROE OIL FIELD FARM-OUT DEAL MAY BE 'PHASED' - The pending farm-out deal for Providence Resources on its Barryroe field in the Celtic Sea, may materialise as a ‘phased’ agreement, initially covering appraisal work, rather than being a full development cost partnership, according to a UK-based analyst. Last month, Providence said it had reached agreement in principle regarding a long-awaited farm-in deal at Barryroe, which would significantly add development investment and potentially halve the Irish firm’s stake in the project to around 40%. However, the deal’s conclusion is reliant on the as-yet unnamed partner raising its own financing, says the Irish Examiner. Furthermore, some UK analysts have expressed concern over a farm-in partner succeeding in raising relevant financing to fulfill its obligations, and have said such challenges could put back Barryroe’s full development/ first commercial oil flow for the best part of three years, from an initial estimate date of 2017 to around 2019 to 2020. “It’s a very significant issue. Debt providers currently have their hands full managing their existing books and it’s very difficult, at this moment, to gain funding for new projects,” one said yesterday.
