RTÉ ran a television advertisement for Newstalk that implored viewers to "move the dial" to its radio rival at least five times last week – but it was all by mistake.
The Newstalk ad, which RTÉ controversially rejected in April 2014 citing internal guidelines, was “inadvertently loaded” into its computerised transmission system and “broadcast in error”, RTÉ said.
It added that there had been “no change” to its internal guidelines, which state that commercials for media- sector rivals should not contain a “call-to-action” message such as “move the dial”.
The mistake was uncovered after Newstalk, owned by Denis O'Brien's Communicorp, issued a statement hailing an apparent change of heart on the part of RTÉ, after a year-long dispute that prompted Newstalk to complain to both the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) and Europe.
Final frame removed
In March this year, Newstalk eventually removed the “move the dial” slogan from the final frame of the ad in order for a truncated version to run on RTÉ, saying it couldn’t forgo marketing to its target audience any longer.
Communicorp then spotted the original version of its ad, including the contentious message, running on RTÉ One and RTÉ 2 last week. Its announced it was “delighted that common sense has prevailed to allow free and fair competition” and that it assumed RTÉ was now reviewing its guidelines for advertisements by competitors.
However, RTÉ responded that there had been no change to its rules and that it never meant to show the “move the dial” version. “The relevant copy has now been removed and replaced by the copy approved for broadcast,” it said.
Newstalk was not impressed. “Just when we thought that RTÉ had come to their senses,” said Communicorp group marketing director Cliona Hayes.
“As we have said before, RTE’s decision not to accept the ad in its original format is motivated by the desire to diminish the effectiveness of Newstalk’s campaign and to curb the listenership of a competitor.”
She reiterated Newstalk’s belief that RTÉ abused its market position by rejecting the ad in its original form – a claim RTÉ denies.
Newstalk is now waiting to hear back from the CCPC, to which it submitted a complaint more than a year ago. Separately, it also lodged a complaint with the European Commission in Brussels claiming that the TV licence fee money awarded to RTÉ was not in accordance with state-aid rules because its commercial activities were “not being carried out on market terms”.
The Communicorp station first created the "move the dial" slogan to promote The Pat Kenny Show after the presenter shocked RTÉ by defecting to Newstalk.
