RTÉ is seeking a new sponsor for repeats of Reeling in the Years, its popular news archive and cultural nostalgia series, in a further sign that the show is a gift that keeps on giving for the broadcaster.
RTÉ‘s media sales division has advertised a one-year sponsorship opportunity for the “landmark documentary series”, pricing it at €100,000 for about 30 episodes. This will give the new sponsor a total of eight sponsorship stings per episode, including those that run on the time-shift RTÉ One+1 channel.
The previous sponsor was paracetamol brand Panadol.
With no new episodes due to air until at least 2030, the offer highlights the continuing commercial value to RTÉ of the much-repeated show, which aims to “take viewers on a nostalgic journey through Ireland’s past, revisiting the defining moments that shaped the nation”.
Prominent scheduling on RTÉ One, typically following the Six One news bulletin, has contributed to healthy viewing averages for re-run editions of the show, which aired its first episodes – dedicated to the 1980s – in 1999.
According to RTÉ‘s sponsorship document, repeats of Reeling in the Years have an average audience of almost 283,000 per episode. This reflects the healthy viewing afterlife commanded by the episodes after their debut.
The last batch of new first-run episodes, covering the years 2010-2019, were broadcast on Sunday evenings in 2021, when they attracted the highest series average in the history of the programme to date. The first seven episodes drew an average audience of 520,000 and amassed 250,000 streams on the RTÉ Player during their initial weeks on air.
RTÉ says the show, created and produced by John O’Regan, sets out to “bring the past to life through stunning archival footage and an iconic soundtrack”, capturing “the spirit of every era” as it looks back on the triumphs and tragedies that made headlines.
On March 17th, 2020, as television viewing spiked amid the unfolding of the Covid-19 crisis, a repeat of the Reeling in the Years episode dedicated to the year 1970 was watched by 654,000 people. This was a high enough audience for it to become the 14th most-watched programme on Irish television that year, according to the annual top 50 rankings by ratings body TAM Ireland and research firm Nielsen.
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The performance came despite the fact that the look-back at 1970 had first aired in 2002 and been shown on several occasions in the meantime.
Some six seasons of Reeling in the Years have been made to date, going back to the 1960s, although no programme was made for either 1960 or 1961 as these years predate the existence of Telefís Éireann, as RTÉ‘s television service was known when it was first launched.
