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Political ads on TV/radio

  • 22-03-2017 10:17pm
    #1
    jrmb
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 723 ✭✭✭


    I'm doing some research into the history of Irish media. I don't have a legal background and I'm particularly interested in the issue of political broadcasts. RTÉ and other channels give free airtime to the various parties in the run up to elections and referendums, but it's illegal to purchase airtime to advertise a particular religious/political point of view.

    Does anyone know for how long this has been the case, and under what law? I've tried to find out but it's proving difficult.


Comments

  • #2
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Broadcasting Act 1960 s. 20(4) forbade advertisements "directed towards any religious or political end". That was the Act which created RTE as a distinct agency. S. 18 of the Act allowed, but did not require, RTE to carry party political broadcasts (and exempted those broadcasts from the requirement of political neutrality that applied to everything else RTE broadcast). Party political broadcasts were a thing in the UK at the time but not, I think, in Ireland. According to this book the first party political broadcasts in Ireland were carried for the 1965 general election.

    Prior to 1960 broadcasting was undertaken by a division of the Dept of Posts and Telegraphs, and was regulated under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1926. The 1926 Act as passed did not include any requirement for political neutrality or any ban on political advertising. I don't know if it was ever amended to include these bans, but I think that both were observed as a matter of policy by P&T. Of course there was no mention of party political broadcasts in the 1926 Act.


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