RTÉ and BAI Blasted for ‘Perverse’ AA Roadwatch Ruling

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An independent podcaster has slammed a ruling of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) as ‘perverse’ and ‘irrational’ and accused RTÉ of flouting legal rules for on-air fairness, saying they are allowing the AA to promote the interests of the motor industry in AA Roadwatch.

William Campbell, who presents the independent political podcast Here’s How, took a complaint saying that AA Roadwatch meets RTÉ’s definition of a sponsored programme, so it should fall under the BAI’s Commercial Communications regulations, which prohibit advocacy groups from all advertising and sponsorship on Irish TV and radio.

Cathal Mac Coille (former presenter of RTÉ’s Morning Ireland) quizzed Campbell on the latest edition of the Here’s How podcast, who told him that the AA is an industry pressure group, registered as lobbyists with the Standards in Public Office Commission under the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015.

“The AA are very active lobbyists for the motor industry, that’s their right in a democracy,” Campbell said, “but they don’t have the right to 12,000 bulletins per year to promote their brand image and highlight their signature campaigning topic, traffic congestion, particularly when other campaign groups don’t get equal access to RTÉ Radio.

“AA Roadwatch is written, edited and read by employees of the AA. Their salaries are paid by the AA and they broadcast from AA premises, sharing an office with easily the best-known industry lobbyist in the country. It is ludicrous to claim that they would never select topics to suit their employer’s lobbying agenda.

“The never-ending drumbeat about how bad traffic is at South Dublin junctions serving middle-class areas has an impact. It pushes the demand for road-building up the political agenda. There is no equivalent spotlight on the plight of someone waiting in the rain for a bus that never comes in a working-class area, or of the difficulties of people who live in areas of rural Ireland with no public transport at all.”

“The AA has used AA Roadwatch to promote its lobbying and political campaigns. When the AA was campaigning to have the cost of the M50 toll bridge transferred to the taxpayer, AA Roadwatch maintained a constant stream of bulletins emphasising their claim that collecting the toll was causing traffic jams. The AA campaigned for years against the Luas, and as soon as construction began, AA Roadwatch used almost every single bulletin to claim that it caused congestion.

“The bottom line is that AA Roadwatch is an instrument to influence public policy. I have collected many examples of Dáil speeches where politicians demand a bypass or new road in their constituency, and offer AA Roadwatch as evidence to support their claims.

“This is plainly a breach of the fairness and impartiality requirements of the Broadcasting Act. To get around this, RTÉ are claiming that rather than a lobby group, the AA is in fact an independent radio producer, making them exempt from the sponsorship rules. This is a perverse untruth, and it is utterly irrational of the BAI to accept this nonsense.”

The Here’s How podcast is available at www.HeresHow.ie

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William Campbell can be contacted for comment at 01 473 8078 or 086 606 9401

This is the complaint that I sent to RTÉ.

RTÉ gave it short shrift. This is the totality of their response.

There was some back-and-forth between me and RTÉ, and RTÉ eventually they made it clear that they would not refer my complaint to an internal reviewer, so I referred the complaint to the BAI.

As per their procedure, the BAI asked RTÉ for their response to the complaint, and forwarded me the that response. This was the first time that RTÉ actually admitted how they classified AA Roadwatch – as an independent radio production.

I responded to the points made by RTÉ, in particular the claim that the AA were, in fact, an independent radio production company.

There followed much wrangling where the BAI initially refused to consider all but one of the grounds for complaint that I had made. After some negotiation, and me asking what legal basis they had to refuse to consider a complaint, I agreed to specify under what rule of the BAI I was making each ground of the complaint.

RTÉ’s Independent Productions Annual Reports for 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 all make it clear that RTÉ had never before contemplated AA Roadwatch as an independent radio production. RTÉ rules also forbid a ‘front credit’ for an independent producer, mentioning the name of the independent producer at the start of the production, it’s only allowed at the end, but they have never considered that either.

The BAI gave the complaint short shrift.