Europe’s move over TV licence fee

"That's beyond my interest-level to be honest," said Ryan Tubridy (above with Tom Vaughan-Lawlor of Love/Hate) at RTÉ One's season launch yesterday as he was asked by hopeful, quote-seeking journalists to comment on Newstalk's complaint to European competition regulators about RTÉ's use of licence fee funding.

Tubridy wasn’t the only one with nothing to say on the matter.

The Department of Communications, which is obliged to be interested, has also declined to comment, on the very reasonable basis that it has not yet seen the complaint or “consulted with the relevant parties”.

Newstalk's grievance is with RTÉ, but the formal complaint lodged is not technically against RTÉ per se, but the Government. Denis O'Brien's Communicorp, the group that owns Newstalk and a whole raft of other radio stations, is calling on Europe to intervene in the State's payment of the licence fee to RTÉ.

It is unhappy with RTÉ’s refusal to run a “move the dial” advertisement on television earlier this year, and it also claims that RTÉ distorts the advertising market by selling radio ads below cost.

TV3 has been known to level a similar complaint in relation to television advertising. But RTÉ insists it aims to maximise revenues across all its trading divisions, and is indeed obliged by statute to do so.

In 2008, the EU Commission investigated whether RTÉ’s use of licence fee funding contravened the somewhat hazy State aid rules that apply to public service broadcasters.

In that instance, the use of the licence fee was found to be fully compatible with EU State aid rules. So if Communicorp’s challenge is to succeed, its lawyers will need a strong argument that something has changed.

It claims there are recent legal precedents that suggest it has a case. Then there is also the issue of the rejected advertisement.

RTÉ, exasperated by what it sees as mischief-making, points out that it never accepts ads from media sector rivals that include a specific “call to action” like “move the dial” and that Newstalk must have known this when it originally submitted the ad in April.

In short, it does not turn down advertising revenue for fun.

In this de facto episode of Denis O’Brien versus the Government, it’s now Europe’s move.