Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

I find it easier to deal with the amendments in this way.

I move amendment No. 25:

In page 43, subsection (2), line 33, to delete "any hour" and substitute "any two hours".

Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 seek to achieve something simple and practical. The Bill provides that there should be only ten minutes of advertisements in any hour, a principle which is accepted across the House as being in the best interests of good programming. We do not wish a total commercialisation of our television stations. Anyone who has been to America and watched television there will have noticed it appears programmes are interrupting the advertisements. Nobody aspires to that happening here.

The Bill provides for a maximum of ten minutes advertising in any hour. It is not mandatory that ten minutes of advertisements be broadcast in any hour. On the face of it, that is fair enough. However, there could be exceptional circumstances — this issue has been raised with me by people in the industry — where this should not apply. For example, the Dalai Lama is to be invited to address this House, a proposition put to the House and readily accepted. If this visit occurs and is to receive live coverage on a given media surely it would wrong to interrupt that coverage with a sequence of advertisements. It would make sense in that situation that the advertising quota be averaged out over two hours. This is a simple and practical measure which could apply in respect of a football match, a special event or ground-breaking interview. We do not need silly examples in this regard. Are we to interrupt a special interview just to run a sequence of advertisements?

I am proposing the deletion of "any hour" and substitution of "any two hours" thereby providing that in exceptional circumstances there be no more than ten minutes advertising in any two hours. This would facilitate coverage of for example outside broadcasts, big events, festivals and so on. Nobody is seeking a carte blanche for advertisers or radio stations. I fully support the objective of maintaining a maximum standard. I have no difficulty with that. The amendment seeks only to adjust that standard in exceptional circumstances.

It would not be in the interests of a radio station to broadcast 20 minutes of advertisements in any given hour. It is in their interests to balance them out over one hour. I am sure this is what their clients would want. The likelihood is that in reality the Minister's objective will be achieved. My proposal relates only to exceptional circumstances. It would not make sense not to run the advertisements for ten minutes in any hour. One hopes that in some instances there would not be ten minutes of advertising within an hour. We have a horror of those awful stations which, thank God, are not national stations but are beamed to us from satellite, and one cringes at the horrific sequences of advertisements which are awful drivel. We do not aspire to that.

My amendment aims to facilitate programming in certain instances, and the flow and rhythm of programmes. It aims to facilitate the industry but not to give on the principle or concept in any shape or form. The practice of a good broadcaster would be to average its advertisements on an hour and its commercial supporters would require that it do so.

I commend the amendment to the Minister for serious consideration and I ask him to do his best to take it on board to give practical expression in the real world to what is a good concept.