ADVERTISERS HAVE urged RTÉ to make changes to the new television ad trading system it is set to introduce in July, saying the broadcaster’s proposed “early agreement discount” is not in the industry’s “best interests”.

The statement from the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland follows TV3’s call on the Government to oblige RTÉ to either “produce a compliant advertising sales scheme in line with best competition principles” or reduce the maximum amount of ad minutes it can sell – perhaps by eliminating peak-time advertising from RTÉ One.

The institute said it was against any removal of ad minutes.

However, the trade body and TV3 are united in their dislike of the “early agreement” clause, which offers lower rates to advertisers who commit to a certain annual spend. The institute said the discount structure was “restrictive” and required advertisers to underwrite a budget before the start of the trading year.

RTÉ has devised a new scheme to replace the “share deal” system that the Competition Authority said “could be anti-competitive”.

RTÉ group commercial director Willie O’Reilly said there was “room for manoeuvre” on the new scheme. “We are willing to look at it over the next couple of days,” he said, adding that RTÉ was a compliant organisation.

“One of the things we were trying to do in designing this is reward people who spend more, but also to encourage people to spread their spend over the year.

“Ultimately what the director general wants from me is visibility on how much money RTÉ has to spend on programmes.”

Mr O’Reilly said TV3’s suggestion that the number of ad minutes on RTÉ One should be reduced if it did not review its new trading system would likely result in advertisers’ spend disappearing from the market and would cost industry jobs.

TV3 group commercial director Pat Kiely said RTÉ’s financial crisis came despite the fact that it had one of the highest ad-minute quotas among European public service broadcasters.