The Irish Times
May 31, 2003

By HARRY BROWNE

While the unlicensed Dublin stations I wrote about in last week’s column start to crawl from the wreckage of their transmitter raids (Kiss came back to 94.4 this week; Phantom is due on 91.6 over the weekend), it seems a few soon-to-be ex-licensed stations around the State have been having a well-earned whinge to the joint Oireachtas committee on communications.

Committee “rapporteur” Senator Kathleen O’Meara hails from Tipperary, one scene of the “crimes” against local radio committed by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI). On Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) she had the BCI dead to rights for its still-opaque licensing procedure for local stations; she raised the right questions too about the co-ops that ran stations but ran afoul of the re-licensing process, and about the lack of an appeals mechanism. On the other hand, and despite the protestations of spurned broadcasters, for as long as we regard the airwaves as a public asset there should never be automatic renewal for licence-holders, however “successful” in attracting listeners and/or money. BCI complaints about being unconsulted on the report are a bit rich, given its own overwhelming power in this sector. It’s a bit like Donald Rumsfeld, also on Morning Ireland, saying: “Interference in Iraq . . . will not be permitted.” In Rummy’s dictionary, “interference” obviously doesn’t include sanctions, bombing and invasion - at least when perpetrated by the US.