Party political broadcasts do not make good television. Transmitted at peak viewing times, their production values are often tacky while their content is, at best, propagandistic.
As the continuity announcer starts the familiar refrain, "There now follows a party political broadcast on behalf of . . .", many viewers probably hit the zapper.
However, these broadcasts have a certain importance as they inform the voters who, through their ballots, determine the fate of governments or the text of the Constitution.
During general election campaigns RTE has allocated these broadcasts to political parties putting forward at least seven candidates. But following the Supreme Court decision in the Coughlan case, the future of these broadcasts is uncertain.
A lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, Mr Anthony Coughlan, objected to the allocation of party political broadcasts during the 1995 referendum to rescind the constitutional ban on divorce.
At that time RTE permitted two party political broadcasts to each of five parties which were advocating a yes vote. In addition, organisations for and against divorce were provided with airtime for similar broad casts.
This policy resulted in 40 minutes of broadcasting time being given to those favouring the introduction of divorce while those opposed to the constitutional amendment were provided with 10 minutes.
Mr Coughlan argued that the allocation of this uncontested broadcasting time was imbalanced and that RTE was acting contrary to its statutory obligations to impartiality and fairness under the Broadcasting Act. However, RTE was of the view that it was lawfully entitled to allocate party political broadcasts as it did in the 1995 referendum.
The conduct of referendum campaigns has been the subject of several recent decisions by the Supreme Court. In particular, in the 1995 McKenna case, the court held that using public money to promote a yes vote in a referendum campaign was an interference with the democratic process.
By a four to one majority yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld an earlier High Court judgment that the unequal allocation of uncontested broadcasting time to each side in the referendum was also constitutionally unfair.
Mr Coughlan argued that had RTE won the case it could have "opened a legal path to the allocation of public funding to the political parties on an unequal basis".
However, if anything, this latest judgment copper-fastens the necessity for fairness and equality during referendum campaigns by the State and any of its agencies, such as RTE, which are in receipt of public funds.
The national broadcaster is left in a difficult position. The Coughlan judgment means that RTE, as Mr Justice Keane noted, "cannot safely transmit party political broadcasts during the course of referendum campaigns".
Without legislative changes, party political broadcasts in referendums could be an endangered species. Indeed, there are many other ways in which political parties could get their views across to voters - by postering, leafleting, advertising in the print media, and also through debates on news and current affairs programmes on RTE and other stations.
While Mr Coughlan had no complaint about the general coverage by RTE in its news and current affairs output during the referendum campaign, the national broadcaster may have to consider whether there are wider implications of the judgment. In future referendums a stopwatch will have to be used to ensure the sides receive equal airtime.
Politicians from the main parties remain unhappy with the implications of the McKenna judgment. None of them felt it necessary to respond to the Coughlan judgment. But the issue of party political broadcasts in referendums will ultimately have to be addressed by the politicians.