Bord Bia spent a total of €312,100 in sponsorship of RTÉ TV programmes last year, according to figures by the Irish food board.
The Home Grown series “celebrating the Irish horticulture industry”, which aired across seven episodes from November 2022, received €139,000 in sponsorship by Bord Bia.
A further €136,200 in sponsorship was spent on the six-part Neven’s Greenway Food Trails and two Christmas special shows with chef Neven Maguire on RTÉ One.
While both amounts were paid directly to the production company, an additional €36,900 was paid directly to RTÉ for Bloom Live at Bord Bia’s annual horticultural festival.
Bord Bia’s sponsorship of Home Grown was paid to In Production, while for the greenway series and the Christmas shows, the Irish food board paid Telegael, which is owned by In Production.
RTÉ TV programmes
In Neven’s Greenway Food Trails, the chef met several food producers, while Neven’s Christmas at Muckross Traditional Farms featured recipes using Irish seafood and Bord Bia quality assured food.
Bord Bia’s 2022 annual report shows that the Christmas series filmed in Killarney, Co. Kerry reached approximately 250,000 people with each episode broadcast in December 2022.
Research carried out after Home Grown aired “reported a high awareness of the programme and its educational significance in profiling the horticulture industry”, the Irish food board said.
The consumer and industry evaluation research also showed the programme’s “educational significance” in “building consumer knowledge of the range of produce and plants grown locally”.
Final viewing figures for the series were “very strong” with over 1.75 million people tuning in to watch the programme, according to Bord Bia’s 2022 annual report.
Bord Bia’s annual Bloom event aims to “motivate people to embrace, experience and advocate for Irish horticulture, food and drink as part of a sustainable lifestyle, cultivating fans for life”.
Bord Bia
Bord Bia noted that some invoices related to these shows were paid in 2021 and 2023. Annual TV sponsorship costs vary year to year depending on RTÉ scheduling and production timelines.
Last year, Bord Bia had a marketing and promotional expenditure of €50.4 million, of which most was spent on the meat and livestock sector at €20.3 million.
The marketing and promotion of the dairy sector, the horticulture sector, and consumer foods cost the Irish food board €7.3 million, €9 million, and €13.7 million in 2022 respectively.