BAI Complaints 2016

The BAI (Broadcasting Authority of Ireland) have announced details of their decisions of complaints to Irish Broadcasters from the general public. The BAI did not up hold any complaint in this current round with six complaints rejected by the authority.

The complaints were made against RTÉ and Newstalk. Five complaints were made against RTÉ and just one against Newstalk.

Each of the broadcast happened in 2016, with the decision being made by the BAI release from 1 year to six months after the initial complaint.

Gary Delaney made a complaint against the announcement of the new postal code system in Ireland (known as Eircode). These were public service announcements made by the government which were broadcast across RTÉ ONE and Radio 1.

Mr. Delaney complaint was that the announcement called for people calling emergency services to use their eircode. His complaint states that Capita (the owners of Eircode) are not a public body and had no authority to advertise Eircode as part of a public service safety announcement.

The BAI sided with RTÉ as the broadcast was supported by the National Ambulance Service, it was not paid for by the Department of Communications who are responsible for the public service announcement and that it was aired outside normal RTÉ commercial air time as a free Public Service ad.

Newstalk complaint, by Declan Askin, was due to the broadcast of an opinion by Pat Kenny on literacy rates in Ireland following an interview with Ed Byrne the president of the ASTI. Mr. Kenny stated that it was down to Secondary School teacher that literacy rates were so poor.

The BAI sided with Newstalk as the show had given enough time to parents, teachers and students during the 30 minute segment.

Micheal Fitzgerald complained to the BAI on a feature on the Marina Finnucan Show, in relation to an item regarding Israel. The BAI state that the complaint was rejected unanimously. Micheal Fitzgerald stated that the lack of perspective from Israel was erroneous on RTÉ. The BAI rejected the claim saying "While there is evidently another perspective on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the Committee did not agree that it was necessary to examine this other perspective in a context where the content had a predominantly human interest focus and having also regard to the fact that the issues relating to the conflict would already have been familiar to audiences."

The Irish Bread Bakers Association made a complaint about What Are You Eating? RTÉ had previously made the decision not to repeat episode 4 of the series following a complaint by the IBBA. The complaint relates to the Sliced Pan section of the programme and comments made by celebrity chef Darina Allen who suggested it should be banned. The programme in question was broadcast 4 times in 2016 without any complaint.

The Nordic Cochrane Centre complained about Prime Time.

The Wind Aware Ireland complained about RTÉ ONE's Nine News.