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Welcome to Room 101, dumping ground for all that is truly dreadful, be it vegetable,…
What to do with a regulator that explicetly refused to take any action against the deliberate flouting of its own Directory Enquiry regulation?
"27th October 2004,
Dear Mr. Weigl,
ComReg is satisfied that the '11811' sponsorship arrangements are not in breach of decision notice D12/04 "Access to Tariff Information on Directory Enquiry Services".
Yours sincerely
Bobby Hannan.
Manager – Consumer Management... ComReg
21 January 2005, Decision by the BCC: “Decision of the Commission:
The Broadcasting Complaints Commission upheld the complaint made by Mr. Peter Weigl. The Commission was of the view that RTÉ, TG4 and TV3 infringed Section 24(2)(e)(advertising & sponsorship codes). The Commission had particular regard to Section 21.1(iii) of the 'Codes of standards, practice and prohibitions in advertising, sponsorship, and other forms of commercial promotion in broadcasting services'. This states that 'sponsorship credits must not encourage the purchase or rental of the products or services of the sponsor or a third party, in particular making special promotional references to those products or services other than in advertisements in commercial breaks'. In other words, sponsorship credits should be distinct from advertisements in that they should not include direct encouragement to purchase a product or service, nor should they promote the attributes of a product or service. In light of this, the Commission was of the opinion that the broadcast piece in question was an advertisement and not a sponsorship credit. It clearly encourages the purchase of an Eircom service, 11811 and promotes aspects of that service.
"27th October 2004,
Dear Mr. Weigl,
ComReg has investigated and can confirm, that it is possible to receive information on the pricing of both the national and international DQ services via eircom's 1901 customer service enquiries number, by speaking to an operator.".
Yours sincerely
Bobby Hannan.
Manager – Consumer Management... ComReg
21 January 2005, Decision by the BCC: In relation to advertisements, a broadcaster is obliged to ensure that all advertisements broadcast by it are legal, honest, decent and truthful. In line with this code, the Commission is of the opinion that a viewer should be made aware that a premium rate call charge applies to the use of the service. Therefore, this broadcast item should include an indication of the cost of using the 11811 service. The complaints were upheld.”
The story began in January 2004, when we took issue with Communications regulator’s (ComReg) “Guide to Directory Enquiry Services”, calling it “Not an idiots guide, but a guide made by idiots” .
It took a further lampooning of ComReg’s useless high-gloss guide and highlighting ComReg’s failure to protect Irish consumers against their fleecing by the two directory enquiry services Eircom and Conduit in April 2004 to move the regulator into action.
After a public consultation process ComReg issued directions, obliging DQ service providers to make their customers aware of the cost of call completion at point of offering the service and to include price information with all advertising or promotion of their services. The Irish consumer was finally given the same protection consumers in other EU states. It seemed.
But ComReg managed to deliberately create a loophole, excluding the only really important promotional drive for Directory Enquiry services, Eircom’s DQ sponsorship of the weather on the national Television stations. It is not conceivable why ComReg would do so and a FOI about the matter did not shed any light on the reasons. The consumer director of ComReg was honoured with the “Bend over Backwards award” for allowing Eircom to proceed with its disregard of spirit and letter of the ComReg Directory Enquiry directive, which came into force in October 2004.
When ComReg explicitly refused to take any action about the flouting of its own directive by RTE and Eircom we looked at the sponsorship guidelines and it was immediately obvious that the 11811 sponsorship “sting” was in clear breach of the broadcasting rules: It was not sponsorship but advertising in its starkest form. RTE colluded with Eircom to deliberately circumvent ComReg's rules concerning promotion and advertising of Directory Enquiry services, in force since October 1st 2004. Only when our attempts to move RTE to rectify the situation lead to nowhere, we had no other choice but to make a formal complaint to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission in October 2004.
Had the same disregard for consumers occurred with banking, i.e. a bank flouting the regulation to always publish the annual interest or other terms and conditions in product advertisements, by disguising the advertisement as sponsorship, I am sure RTE reporters would be out hounding the people responsible. I guess there is little chance of that happening in this case.
At least in this instance the harm done is only monetary damage to the DQ user. This cannot be said of the co-operation a few years earlier, when RTE colluded with Eircom on the fake testing of its ADSL broadband product. The only reason then was for Eircom to have an alibi to postpone the introduction of broadband to the Irish public for several years for short-term profits from overpriced dial-up. The then regulator ODTR was just as useless to intervene as ComReg has been now. But the damage done is immeasurable: Ireland will be condemned to the bottom places of the EU broadband league tables for a very long time.
It is noteworthy that the BCC also upheld our complaint against advertisements for Eircom’s DQ service on other radio stations on the basis that in them the consumer was not “made aware that a premium rate call charge applies to the use of the service”.
RTE has from yesterday pulled Eircom's Directory Enquiry "sting" on the national TV weather forecasts.
But that is not the end of the story.
Why did they not react when we outlined to them that this sponsorship deal was in clear breach of the rules back in October?
What will Eircom's only competitor Conduit have to say about the immense disadvantage that was brought upon them by this RTE/Eircom collusion. Why did ComReg turn a blind eye at Conduit's plea in the DQ consultation process regarding sponsorship?
Why did ComReg, who is in charge of regulating the Directory Enquiry service industry not lift a limb to enforce its own consumer protection measures.
Which other "sponsorship" deals on RTE are in breach of the guidelines, i.e. are in reality advertising for products – which is explicitely forbidden under the sponsoship guidelines?
Resources:
1.Download the full text of the BCC decision from their web site, it's a Word file.
2. Article in The Sunday Business Post:
RTE's ad deals under review after ruling
Sunday, January 30, 2005 - By Eamon Quinn
RTE is to review the legal status of all its sponsored shows, including the €1 million promotion of The Late Late Show by Renault, after a landmark ruling by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC).
The review will also put at risk the €600,000-plus promotion by Eircom's 11811 directory enquiries service on RTE as well as TV3 and TG4.
Paddy Power's sponsorship of RTE TV Racing, the product promotions on RTE Radio weather by Glen Dimplex and the Sunday Times' sponsorship of RTE Radio's weekend sports programmes will also be in jeopardy.
This weekend RTE pulled Eircom's 11811 sponsorship of television weather reports after the BCC upheld a specific complaint that Irish broadcasters broke government broadcasting that forbid advertisers promoting specific products on sponsored programmes.
However, an RTE spokesman said that the ruling had implications that went far beyond the specific ruling by the BCC.
“RTE is examining the sponsorship of all shows in light of the BCC ruling,” the spokesman said.
Advertisers and broadcasters are in a bind because they are also governed by European Union directives which restrict the amount of product information advertised on sponsored shows and also, potentially, the sponsorship of all news and current affairs programmes.
RTE may have a further problem with the BCC ruling in that sponsored shows such as Eircom's directory enquiries service currently do not count toward the minutes of advertising it is permitted to broadcast in any one hour.
The BCC ruling followed a complaint brought by telecoms expert Peter Weigl that directory enquiries providers should publicise call-connect tariffs on all their TV promotions.
Weigl's campaigns had earlier persuaded regulator ComReg to rule that Eircom's 11811 and Conduit's 11850 services provide consumers with price details at point of sale and in all advertising from last October.
However, Weigl said he had brought the complaint to the BCC after ComReg had appeared to allow directory enquiries services to sponsor television weather - their main type of advertising - without publicising price tariffs.
Upholding the complaint, the BCC said that RTE, TV3 and TG4 had infringed Section 24(2)(e) of the government's advertising and sponsorship codes.
“Sponsorship credits should not include direct encouragement to purchase a product or service, nor should they promote the attributes of a product or service,” the BCC ruled.
“In light of this, the commission was of the opinion that the broadcast piece in question was an advertisement and not a sponsorship credit.”
The commission added: “In relation to advertisements, a broadcaster is obliged to ensure that all advertisements broadcast by it are legal, honest, decent and truthful.
“In line with this code, the commission is of the opinion that a viewer should be made aware that a premium rate call charge applies to the use of the service.”
3.Our response to the RTE argumentation before the BCC:
Dear ...(BCC),
Here is my response to the RTE reply to my complaint, which you’ve sent me. This reply should as well be considered as an answer to the TG4 reply:
Background
Again I am astonished that both RTE and TG4, as publicly funded broadcasters, do not deem it necessary to take into consideration the findings of our telecommunications regulator Comreg. This body has concluded that the Irish consumer is not informed about the fact that DQ services carry a charge (for historical reasons – it was a free service up to a few years ago) and therefore deemed it necessary to regulate for all “advertising and promotion” of DQ services to include information about the charges of the service, or at least make consumers aware where they can get information about the charges, at a cost not higher than a local telephone call.
Both RTE and TG4 prefer to hide behind some misinterpretation of paragraphs of the “Broadcast Sponsorship Guidelines” to get the sponsorship “dosh”, disregarding consumer welfare. I am aware that this is more a matter for the board of the broadcasters than the BBC, but still think it is relevant background information when considering the issue.
“• In all cases the decision as to the suitability of credits rests with RTE,” it says in the sponsorship guidelines, and one would assume that RTE would take the findings of Comreg serious.
So we have to look at and scrutinize the arguments in Peter Feeney’s letters, especially the one dated 1 November 2004:
RTE states:
1.
“Mr Weigl in his complaint makes the point that the sting leading into the weather is an advertisement rather than a sponsorship notice. Section 2 of RTE's Sponsorship Guidelines (copy attached) states that
Credits may however be programme related and may also include product use
Credits should not equate to calls to purchase products or services, therefore the inclusion of prices or sales promotions is prohibited
I draw the Commission's attention to these two guidelines as the first one permits usage of specific products (i.e. the sponsorship sting can say more than "sponsored by…”, it may refer to a particular product) and the second one specifically excludes the inclusion of pricing structures in sponsorship stings.”
Those two guidelines do actually not say what RTE claims. The second guideline does not prohibit price information or sales promotion per se, but makes it absolutely clear that the prohibition of giving price information is the consequence (‘therefore”) of the rule that “Credits should not equate to calls to purchase products of services”.
The credits in Eircom’s so-called DQ Weather sponsorship equate to a call to purchase a service. “Call Eircom 11811, for any number you need nationwide!” “When you need a number in a hurry, call Eircom 11811!” Whenever customers call 11811 they have purchased the DQ service at a cost of ca 60 cent. So RTE and Eircom are in clear breach of the guidelines mentioned to their defense by them. In fact a more explicit “call to purchase a service” than that in the 11811 credits is hard to imagine.
2.
“Throughout the sponsorship stings found in Irish broadcasting there are many references to particular products. If the BCC were to uphold this complaint on the grounds that it was really an advertisement rather than a sponsorship notice many other sponsorship notices would also be fond to be in breach of regulations.”
An interesting proposition by RTE. Which are those “many other sponsorship notices” that might also fall foul of the sponsorship guidelines? Let RTE bring them forward, so that it can be established whether they merely “include product use”, which is permitted by the guidelines, or whether they are also in breach of the guidelines and “equate to calls to purchase products or services”.
3.
“In addition the introduction of pricing information would in effect make sponsorship stings closer to advertisements.”
It could not make it closer to advertisement, as the sting is already a call to purchase the product, but it would inform the viewer of the fact that this service is not a free service. By the way, ComReg have explicitly said that the main point is to get the message across that DQ services are not free services. They have stressed that where it is impracticable to give a price information, an information where the price information can be got suffices.
4.
“RTE wises to reiterate the point made in its letter of 28 October, that Comreg's directive on advertising requirements specifically excludes sponsorship. Therefore the only regulations that apply in this instance are the Departmental and RTE codes on sponsorship.”
This statement is simply not correct and a misinterpretation of the Comreg regulation on DQ services. Comreg’s directive on the promotion and advertising does not specifically exclude sponsorship.
From the Comreg document: “Direction 1 When advertising or promoting its service a Directory Enquiry service provider shall indicate the applicable charges, or alternatively, indicate where such information may be obtained. The cost to a user of obtaining such information should not exceed the cost of a local telephone call. The Directory Enquiry service provider should also publicise their separate customer service number in printed material.”
In the accompanying documentation Comreg make this statement:
“ComReg does not intend to prescribe the text that should be included in advertisements or promotions. However, DQ service providers should make the consumer aware that charges apply. They should provide the consumer with the location where the tariff information can be accessed and should publicise their separate customer service number in printed material.
As regards the request to stipulate inclusion of pricing information in sponsorship; ComReg’s understanding is that guidelines have been established in this area. These guidelines make a distinction between advertising and sponsorship and ComReg does not propose that the requirements being set should override existing guidelines.” (Highlight by me)
In my opinion Comreg merely had no reason to and did not foresee that the existing and very clear sponsorship guidelines would or could be breached in such a way that the thrust of Comreg’s regulation on DQ promotion would be circumvented.
5.
“I draw the Commission's attention to these two guidelines as the first one permits usage of specific products (i.e. the sponsorship sting can say more than "sponsored by,..", it may refer to a particular product)”
May I draw the Commission’s attention to the fact that in the Eircom DQ sting none of these phrases appear “Sponsored by; Supplied by or Commissioned by etc.” as is demanded in the sponsorship guidelines:
“a) A sponsor funding part or whole of a programme should say, for example, 'Sponsored by' or' In association with' or words of similar meaning.
b) If a sponsor provides / makes the programme this too must be made clear. The use of phrases like 'Produced by', 'Supplied by', or 'Commissioned by' or words of similar meaning would be appropriate.”
“The use of a company tag line or associated music jingle may be permitted, but only in conjunction with the phrase "Sponsored by".”
6. May I also draw the Commision’s attention to this sponsorship guideline:
“While credits and advertising messages must be different, credits must still comply with all relevant Advertising Codes of Practice in force at the time.”
Well, If the credits of sponsorship stings have to comply with the advertising codes in force at the time, and if these advertising codes say that DQ Service providers have to include price information (or at least information where prices can be obtained) in all their advertising and promotion, than this guideline alone would contradict RTE’s arguments and practice.
Conclusion:
The current Eircom DQ service sponsorship sting with RTE, TG4 and TV3 is in clear breach of existing sponsorship guidelines and constitutes advertising.
Since 1 October 2004 all advertising and promotion of DQ services has to comply with the regulations by Comreg on the matter.
RTE and Eircom have knowingly and intentionally circumvented the consumer protection given by comreg. The DQ industry is a multi million business, which has profited by not informing Irish consumers about the price of DQ services (or at least giving them the information where they could obtain the price) according to the binding Comreg regulation on DQ services advertising and promotion.
I ask the Broadcasting Complaints Commission to ensure that this practice is stopped immediately.
Special consideration has to be given to the special case of DQ services, special because the name of the service, 11811 (is it really the name of the service?) is identical with the telephone number to purchase the service. Perhaps this makes it unsuitable under the sponsorship guidelines?
[Mental experiment: A chat line Premium Service provider in a sponsorship sting wants to include the phrase: “Want a sexy chat? Call hotgirls 666 666” – and not display the per minute price of those calls, as the RegTel guidelines demand, arguing that prices cannot be given on sponsorship credits.
This would be unimaginable of course, albeit it is the exact equivalent to the current 11811-sponsorship situation.
But what if the sponsorship sting was changed to “Sponsored by hotgirls 666 666” and still no per minute price was given? I imagine RTE would rightly argue, that this was still incompatible with the sponsorship guidelines, as the name of the company, because of being identical with the service purchase phone number was akin to advertising for service purchase and secondly that “credits must still comply with the relevant Advertising codes of practice in force at the time”, which of course are laid down by RegTel in this case and demand per minute call price information inclusion]
It would be difficult to demand the compensation of customers who purchased the DQ service as a consequence of not being informed about the price or at least the fact that it is no longer a free service. But Eircom and RTE should be directed to make good the missing information about DQ pricing in its weather sponsorship, which was in fact advertising, since 1 October 2004: A clear message should be given to the viewers that Eircom’s DQ services carries a charge of ca 60 cent per number and additional charges apply for call connection.
May I ask the Commission to include other Eircom DQ promotion and examine the current Eircom DQ advertising on Today FM? Here Eircom breaches the Comreg regulation on DQ advertising and promotion, by not informing the customer about the charges, or giving the information where the customer can get information on the charges (for not more than the cost of a local phone call). Then wording “more information at www.eircom.ie” or similar does not:
1. Inform the listeners that this is a charged service and that this is the place where they can get price information.
2. Does not give the listeners the chance to get information on the price of the service at a cost not higher than a local call, as
a) only 37 % of Irish household have an Internet connection, only 60% of those are really using it in a meaningful way (ComReg figures, leaving just at most 25% of households in a position to use the website as a means to retrieve the price information.
b) With the high Irish dial-up pricing (the by far predominant path to the Internet in Ireland) for Internet and the difficulty to find the DQ price information on the web address given, even the 25% of households with an Internet connection will not be able to retrieve the price for less than a local phone call.
This is just another way of DQ service provider Eircom to evade the regulation by Telecom Regulator Comreg aimed at protecting Irish consumers by getting them informed of either the DQ service price or at least giving them the possibility to inform themselves about the charges at a cost no more than a local call.
Please let me know whether I will have to make a new formal complaint about this issue, or whether the BCC can follow up from here.
Regards
4. Articles on the issue appeared as well in the Irish Times and Independent. Electric News (ENN) reported this:
(11 Jan 2005) According to the Irish Independent, Eircom's sponsorship of RTE's weather broadcasts could be under threat following a complaint by a telecoms expert. Telecoms analyst Peter Weigl has claimed that several TV stations are in breach of the telecom regulator's rules by failing to broadcast tariffs for using the directory enquiries service. He added that Eircom used its estimated sponsorship of weather bulletins to circumvent ComReg regulations on displaying its prices.
(31 Jan 2005) The Irish Times reports that Eircom's directory enquiries service, 11811, has been pulled from the sponsorship spot on RTE's television weather service and replaced with a different Eircom product. The move follows complaints earlier in the month that Eircom should have been displaying tariff information during its sponsorship spots. A Broadcasting Complaints Commission ruling also stated that the 11811 spots were inappropriate because sponsorship credits are not supposed to explicitly advertise products.
