Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 94:

In page 71, line 21, to delete “(1)”.

Section 128C of the Broadcasting Act, as substituted by the Bill, provides that coimisiún na meán may make rules to ensure the prominence of public service programmes and media services on "interactive guides". In practice, public service programmes and services refer to RTÉ and TG4 as public service broadcasters and Virgin Media as a holder of a television programme service contract. Section 128C is intended to exercise an option available to member states under Article 7b of the audiovisual media services directive to take measures to ensure the appropriate prominence of audiovisual media services of general interest.

In subsection (1) of section 128A the definition of "interactive guide" refers to an interface accessed by a "terminal", which itself is defined to refer to equipment with interactive computing capability other than a computer, tablet device or smartphone. In practice, the reference to "terminal" used in the Bill may have the effect of confining the application of any rules on prominence made by coimisiún na meán to platforms accessed through set-top boxes. That has the anomalous effect of applying the prominence rules to an interactive guide offered by a platform provider, such as Sky or Vodafone, through a terminal but not to the very same interactive guide offered by the same platform provider through a smartphone. Amendments Nos. 94 to 97, inclusive, are intended to address this anomaly by removing the reference to a terminal. This change, though largely technical in nature, will future-proof the prominence rules to allow them to reflect continuing changes in the ways audiovisual content is accessed and viewed.