RTÉ bans drink ads during hit TV show

RTÉ has banned alcohol advertising during the hit comedy series, Joey, because of the high numbers of young viewers the programme attracts despite its 9pm start time.

The move comes after the broadcaster was found to have breached its own rules on alcohol advertising at least 10 times in recent months by running drink adverts during programmes where children made up a large part of the audience.

The Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI) upheld 10 complaints lodged by Youth Work Ireland, formerly National Youth Federation, about the ads.

Programmes affected included episodes of three series, Joey, Friends and Father Ted; two films, Austin Powers and The War at Home; and comedy show, The Liffey Laugh.

The ASAI found that RTÉ did not breach the advertising code, which applies where 50% or more of an audience is made up of under-18s, but did breach its own voluntary code which has a lower threshold of 33%. At the times complained of, the audience of under-18s ranged from 35%-48% of viewership.

Youth Work Ireland said the breaches showed the voluntary code was not working and called on the Government to introduce legally binding restrictions.

Federation spokesman Michael McLoughlin said: “The Government, advertisers and drinks industry pointed to this code as the way forward despite the fact that it allowed massive exposure of young people. They set the bar as low as possible and the industry interests have still not been able to reach it. The voluntary approach has failed.”

RTÉ defended its record, pointing out that audiences for each programme were assessed every three months and the decision whether to allow alcohol advertising followed. In each of the 10 cases complained of, the previous audiences all had less than 33% in the under-18 category.

“We can’t forecast the audience, we can only predict what it’s likely to be given the previous periods,” said RTÉ head of commercial operations Paul Mulligan.

“Audiences do change and once we become aware that a programme is getting a consistently young audience, we exclude alcohol advertising,” he said.