Irish Times Plug List - Name and Shame

magpie

Over the years I've derived great entertainment from winding myself up reading the Irish Times Magazine on a saturday and being appalled by its generally aspirational, middle-class suburban smugness. The one thing I have noticed is that they relentlessly plug the same people and services week-in, week-out. For something that is supposed to be a respectable broadsheet they sure know how to try and force their talentless friends to the top of their respective careers. So here's the idea - a list of the most plugged people and products from the Irish Times - and hopefully those cynical marketing hacks that edit the Mag will be shamed into plugging them a little less blatantly.

1) The Chalets - constantly hawked as the "Best Band of 200-" despite their inability to sell any records - bass player does little cartoons for one of the god-awful 'columns' about Irish Society in the Mag so the bum-chum mutual promotion factor is pretty obvious. Most recent plug - terrible 6th year standard writing about The Chalets on tour (.... we played this deadly club in hanover and we met the Kaiser Chiefs who are really cool etc etc etc)

2) Cully and Sully - 2 posh types who sell pies out of a van. One of whom is related to Darina Allen

3) 2Steep2Deep - 2 posh ex Blackrock boys or similar who organise ski holidays for other rich Blackrock types

4) Antonia Cambell Hughes - posh Gollum lookalike who makes clothes out of old sacks. Has been plugged for years as the next amazing thing to hit Irish fashion. Has now turned to acting and is a "huge" success in Britain. She's appeared on the Bill once, and in the Irish Times Magazine 15600000 times.

5) Leigh Tucker - posh fashion designer or interior designer or something equally useless. Appears every week talking about the right kind of strawberries to have with champagne at breakfast in her bijou pied a terre in Dalkey

6) Some bloke who's a solicitor and used to be a model, and his wife who designs fashion/curtains/houses. His name escapes me but he's bald.

7) Scudding Clouds - terribly named interior design company who make multicoloured concrete walls.

8) The guy who works as a "Reputation Manager" and regularly shows off his extravagantly camp lifestyle in columns on "How to gold plate your kitchen sink" etc

Any I've forgotten?

mike65

He!

I dont read the IT so miss out on this sort of thing, what I love though is the way supplements run a front page story on someone who declares

"Why I want to be left alone" Read the heartbreaking story inside etc!.

If thats true why the feck did they do the interview?????

Mike.

BrianD

The best laugh I got from the IT magazine was when Rosin Inglis (Zzzzzzz...) discovered the iPod and decided to tell us all about it! Ahead of the curve, eh?

One of the chaps who does the illustrations in the mag is in the Chalets. It's much easier to do a feature on something/one/band when you have an inside contact (probably accross the desk from you). I like the Chalets but I see your point.

This magazine panders ro conventional coolness ... taking a little bit of 'cool' from every genre without actually committing to it. In fact this magazine is getting very like Coldplay .... incredibly bland.

flogen

Hot Press are other culprits of this kind of crap; plugging bands their friendly with... it's all very easy to do, though.
I mean, the Irish music industry is so small by world standards every music journalist knows the most popular Irish bands (some aren't really that popular, but they're still more popular than others). If you're friends with someone you're more likely to like their music, or at least want to give them a helping hand when they need it (and avoid punching them in the spine for all to see when they screw up).
To solve the problem I suggest someone takes a handful of writers and locks them in a room, slipping them CD's week by week.. this way they can judge them on their merits and not their members

Karoma

I get the impression that most newspaper writers glance through a copy of Hot Press and base their knowledge/opinions on that information and possibly the record label blurb. I'd question whether they've ever listened to any of the bands.
It's rare that I read the IT these days; and I don't bother doing anything more than skimming the magazines inside it. I probably spend more time reading the Dell pamphlets.
It's a vicious cycle which enforces popular opinion that it's never about what you know but rather who you know.

fly_agaric

Magpie, you must really have dissected the Saturday Magazine in the IT for many, many weeks to get all those names. Is it a masochistic urge that makes you do this?

I get the IT on Saturday but I just keep the magazine for the TV pages and ignore all that BS.

monument

magpie, what do you think should be in the magazine on Saturday in the Irish Times?

magpie

Is it a masochistic urge that makes you do this?

At this stage I'm going to have to assume that it is.

what do you think should be in the magazine on Saturday in the Irish Times?

Journalism? Independently researched articles? Photo essays? Anything that's not unadulterated plugging of people/products.

flogen

magpie wrote:

Journalism? Independently researched articles? Photo essays? Anything that's not unadulterated plugging of people/products.

Not to suggest that articles are not bias for some personal reason, but all of these "next big thing" pieces are a matter of opinion, would you expect an article to be written, with interview etc. based on a band that the IT magazine and its staff think will crash and burn very soon?

magpie

I think the key difference is if you are repeatedly saying that one band is the next big thing over a period of years it crosses the boundary from tip-off to hype. Given the number of talented musicians in Ireland how can it be justifiable to give such blanket coverage to one act? Come to think of it they're always plugging that Chuzzle guy as well.

flogen

magpie wrote:

I think the key difference is if you are repeatedly saying that one band is the next big thing over a period of years it crosses the boundary from tip-off to hype. Given the number of talented musicians in Ireland how can it be justifiable to give such blanket coverage to one act? Come to think of it they're always plugging that Chuzzle guy as well.

When did the Irish Times first plug the likes of the Chalets as band of the year, and how many times have they done it since?

Photi

I'll have you know I base my entire lifestyle on the What's Hot and What's Not column of the IT's Saturday magazine.

monument

I don’t usually read the magazine to be honest. Flicking through is more of my norm – the ‘What's Hot and What's Not’ and the few pages before it are the few things I’d look in an detail more then once in a blue moon.

I’ll look tomorrow to see exactly why this is.

On a side issue, I rarely look at any thing past the letters/Business pages in main paper – I’m alone in this?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

flogen wrote:

When did the Irish Times first plug the likes of the Chalets as band of the year, and how many times have they done it since?

That signature reminds of Hulk Hogan...

flogen

monument wrote:

On a side issue, I rarely look at any thing past the letters/Business pages in main paper – I’m alone in this?

Generally speaking suppliments don't interest me; not because of subject matter but they're usually a hefty task to wade through... I might browse through the odd one, though. Depending...

monument

Specifically, I meant beyond the leader/comment/letters pages and then business pages of the main section of the Irish Times - I only flick beyond such about once a month.

anonymous_joe

I saw the Chalets live once. Most disappointing. Didn't live up to the hype...

whiskeyman

Donnybrook Fare.
Coffee shops and other eateries around Sandymount (Itsa-4 springs to mind.) thanks to Roisin Bungle.... eh, I mean Ingle.:D

Also, the "whats hot" section in the Magazine is nothing more than a shill-o-rama of name dropping.

magpie

When did the Irish Times first plug the likes of the Chalets as band of the year, and how many times have they done it since?

Around 2002 I reckon, and whenever they get the chance since then. And its not the 'likes of the chalets', its just the chalets themselves.

Donnybrook Fare.
Coffee shops and other eateries around Sandymount

Well spotted - especially Donnybrook Fare.... you simply must try the artesan wasabe handmade organically in Wicklow etc etc etc etc.

anonymous_joe

I rather like Donybrook Fair. It does nice food...

As a Sandymount resident I do find it amusing to see how much of a mention it gets, but in fairness, the majority of places mentioned in it are of that type, if its not Sandymount it's Dalkey, Kiliney, Sandycove, Malahide, etc.

They know who they're aiming at.

segadreamcast

That guy who sells coffee out of a van. There have been at least two features on him - with him popping up in "mini-segments"/what's hot& what's not at least two more times. Funny that I can't remember his name after all that.

magpie

Funny that I can't remember his name after all that.

"Cúnto the Magnificent"?

I rather like Donybrook Fair. It does nice food...

As a Sandymount resident

Welcome to boards, its Roisin Bungle everyone!

shabbyroad

Who the fluck is Roisín Ingle anyway and what has she actually done that would make me want to read a couple of thousand words written by her every week ?

fly_agaric

NoelRock wrote:

That guy who sells coffee out of a van. There have been at least two features on him - with him popping up in "mini-segments"/what's hot& what's not at least two more times. Funny that I can't remember his name after all that.

He was in it about 2 weeks ago!
I recall the picture of his red+white mochalattefrappuchinomobile.:rolleyes:
Seeing as I don't actually read the supplement properly I don't know his name either.

segadreamcast

magpie wrote:

"Cúnto the Magnificent"?



Welcome to boards, its Roisin Bungle everyone!

You're still a legend for writing that ! I'll never know why you quit.

Snickers Man

Well I get the Irish Times and skim through the magazine every week. Must say NONE of those names you mentioned ring any bells with me at all so they can't be getting plugged all that often.

Though your idea is, in principle, a good one.

Needs to be more systematic though. IE dates of mention and specific details. Not just 'These guys have been plugged loads of times before'

snickerpuss

Yeah i read that every week as well and i don't recognise alot of the stuff you're on about.
And didn't they do a section on up-and-coming bands a while ago? Like a load of them? The chalets weren't in it anyway.
Also roisin ingle doesn't have to have 'done' something to write, shes a writer, thats what she does.

simu

Yeah, I don't think there's a conspiracy to give publicity to a small select bunch tbh... mostly, they're just looking for filler.

face-the-phase

I don't live at home anymore but i used to read the mag, i recognise most of the ppl your talking about! I like roisin ingle

sully of c&s

hi,

very funny. 2 posh types eh??? admitedly cul does do his best to be the posh one. we've only been mentioned in the irish times twice, but if you can plug us anymore, that would be brill. Cul is a nephew of darinas and our van is sadly parked under a tree in cork as ive crashed it too many times.

keep em comin

sully

magpie

Feel free to change your Mission Statement from "Serious About Food" to "2 posh types who sell pies out of a van". You can pay me in pies.