Richie Kelly, the former CEO of Packed.House has set up a new business called Record Media, a production and publishing that will target the Irish and Caribbean markets.
Kelly is joined in the new business by co-founder James Wynne who also worked with Packed.House. Wynne is also a former group head of sponsorship for Denis O’Brien’s Digicel Group.
According to Kelly, the new business will create “premium quality content production and storytelling, tailor made for audiences and commercial partners.
Record Media will be stepping out this weekend with its first publishing platform, The Athletes Record, comprising a series of audio documentaries featuring top athletes who will give in-depth insights into their sporting lives and the lessons learned along the way. This weekend’s launch will be followed by The Athletes Record Caribbean edition later this summer.
Gym+Coffee has come on board as sponsor of the first series of The Athletes Record. Launched in 2017, the Irish athleisure brand has enjoyed one of the most successful brand launches in recent years and saw a spike in demand during the lockdown period as it ramped up its online operations.
“This is an exciting partnership for us at Gym+Coffee and another step in our brand’s journey. The Athletes Record has a unique approach to storytelling which focuses more on the human aspect of sport, rather than performance which is a great fit for us since our community has a keen interest in the story behind the athlete, their good days and their struggles and the passion that drives them,” says Diarmuid McSweeney, co-founder of Gym+Coffee.
The podcast format will be supported by first person written features by the athletes for which Record Media has partnered with the Business Post. The features will appear in the Business Post newspaper from this Sunday, 16th May and will also be available to online subscribers to BusinessPost.ie.
Athletes who will feature in the first episodes include Ulster Rugby’s Ian Madigan; Galway hurling’s Conor Whelan; track athlete, Síofra Cléirigh Büttner; Dublin footballer, Paddy Andrews and AFLW and LGFA player from Tipperary, Aisling McCarthy.
Richie Kelly is no stranger to start-ups having been part of the launch team for Metro in Ireland and later he established Denis O’Brien’s Trend Media, part of the Digicel Group in the Caribbean. Trend Media’s flagship brand, Loop News now boasts close to 6m monthly users across the region. On his return to Dublin, Kelly set up Packed.House before moving on to launch Record Media.
For his part Wynne was also head of marketing for the Digicel-owned Caribbean Premier League cricket tournament. There he led the activation strategy and digital content production working with talent such as Usain Bolt, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Chelsea FC and West Indies Cricket as well as the Bob Marley Foundation.
“We’ve long harboured an ambition to launch our own production and publishing business, having successfully done so for others in the past. As such, Record Media is the culmination of about twenty years of experience in the digital media and marketing sectors. In Ireland and the Caribbean, we have two vibrant markets that are very familiar to us and we believe that we can bring high quality entertainment and production value to audiences and brands in both regions,” says Kelly.
The Athletes Record audio docuseries, in association with Gym+Coffee, will be available on all podcast platforms from Monday, 17th May and the first in the series of written features will be in this Sunday’s Business Post and on BusinessPost.ie.
