Why RTE puts itself on camera

All who have had to endure RTE’s wall-to-wall advertising promoting itself and the TV licence will understand why the broadcaster is in the midst of a financial crisis.

This intense campaign, which seems to be run during peak advertising times, must cost the broadcaster several million euro in lost revenue.

Of course, these ads are part of RTE’s campaign to soften up the public and the Government for a hike in the licence fee, substantiating the widely held belief that the station regards the TV licence-holder as an easy source of income when it fails to balance its books.

One would have thought that RTE’s advertising campaign would have been prohibited by Section 20 (4) of the Broadcasting Act, 1960 (which RTE recently invoked to refuse advertising to the Power To Change group) as such advertising is clearly intended to achieve an increase in the licence fee, which is a political end. Perhaps it is naive to believe that RTE would apply to itself the same standards that it demands of others?

Mairtin Ó Maolruaidh,

Polkeen,

Tuam Road,

Galway.