Post Irish Daily Star acquisition: the big changes you need to know about
It’s been a busy few months since we acquired the Irish Daily Star brands and in this post, we've explained how we’ve reorganised the commercial side of the business to offer more value for clients and make things more efficient for our agency partners.
Here are the four main changes you need to know about:
#1:
Reach became the new owner of Irish Daily Star in November 2020 when we purchased the then joint venture partner Independent News and Media’s remaining 50% shareholding.
It brings the number of news brands we have all-Ireland to four daily newspapers (when you include the Northern Ireland editions of the Daily Mirror and Irish Star), four Sunday newspapers (Irish and NI editions of Sunday Mirror and Sunday People), six websites - Buzz.ie
#2:
We’ve now established a single buying point for both daily newspapers in ROI - Irish Daily Mirror and Irish Daily Star. The joint print offering will be known as ‘The Morning Market’ and will provide the strongest audience solution in the Irish popular market as it will offer advertisers a combined reach of 222,000 readers going by latest TGI figures.
#3:
The new offering will come under a new team within our commercial dept. called ‘Reach Publishing’, which will be headed up by Catriona Byrne who will have Peter Menton and Colin Russell working alongside her. The same brilliant ‘Star’ people you’ve always dealt with - but they’ll now cover both papers.
#4:
‘Reach Partnerships’ will then deliver on all digital marketing solutions and that’s Hugh Crowther’s team and all your usual contacts - Caroline, Conor, Cormac, Aoife, Aisling, Sonia - as well as Alan who is Head of Brand Strategy and our commercial writers working across both teams.
Hugh is now Head of Reach Partnerships and that team, according to Group Sales Director Padraig Sugrue, has seen “exponential growth in recent years.”
“Hugh and his team have been instrumental in this success and our new structure will enable them to focus their efforts in this key growth area of the business.”
Padraig added:
“We are delighted to inherit such an iconic brand in the Irish Star and to welcome their talented team to Reach.
“The acquisition has strengthened our print business considerably and the launch of ‘Reach Publishing’ was a natural step to protecting and nurturing this business over the years ahead.
“Our ‘Morning Market’ solution combines the reach of both our Irish Daily Star and Irish Daily Mirror titles to offer more value for clients and more efficiency for our agency partners. We have seen great demand for our ‘Morning Market’ product already with some of Ireland’s leading brands benefiting from our increased scale.
“I would like to take this opportunity to formally welcome Catriona and her team on board and we believe her experience and strong connections will take Reach Publishing from strength to strength.”