PA MediaRTÉ will not air any live news bulletins on TV which contain Olympic footage due to licencing rights, the Irish broadcaster has said.
On Wednesday, the station’s news television bulletins were geo-blocked in Northern Ireland on Freeview channel 54, RTÉ Player and the RTÉ News website.
A number of people took to social media to complain about the programmes being blocked, with one person calling it “censorship”.
In a statement on Thursday, RTÉ said it would make an edited bulletin available on the online RTÉ player each night for viewers in Northern Ireland and internationally.
The broadcaster explained that it has the rights to broadcast the 2024 Olympics Games “in the Republic of Ireland only”.
It confirmed that the uninterrupted news coverage in Northern Ireland will resume when coverage of the Olympic Games has concluded.
‘Unfortunately unable’
RTÉ said the “exclusive free-to-air broadcast rights for Northern Ireland for the 2024 Olympic Games are held by the BBC”.
It said the BBC “were licensed those rights in a UK Olympics rights deal agreed between the BBC and the pan-European rights holder, Discovery back in 2016”.
“Broadcast rights include use of any footage as part of news coverage and so RTÉ is unfortunately unable to broadcast or stream live any bulletins in Northern Ireland which contain Olympic footage,” RTÉ said.
Despite this, the entirety of the news programmes containing Olympic footage were geo-blocked in Northern Ireland, rather than the specific segments containing the Olympic coverage.
“While RTÉ has sought permission to make our broadcasts of the 2024 Olympic Games available in Northern Ireland, this has not been possible,” the broadcaster said.
The Broadcasting Act 2009 requires RTÉ to provide a public broadcasting service that “will be made available to the whole community on the island of Ireland”.
‘Unacceptable’
Dáire Hughes, Sinn Féin MP for Newry and Armagh, has described the geo-blocking of RTÉ news bulletins as “unacceptable”.
“RTÉ News is viewed by a huge number of people in the north,” he said.
“Political, economic and social developments on this island affect all of us and it is essential that access to news is universal,” Mr Hughes said.
He said he is writing to the Irish minister for media, Catherine Martin, and the RTÉ director general, Kevin Bakhurst, about the situation.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has also written to Mr Bakhurst regarding the geo-blocking.
“Olympic footage is an important part of coverage but it can’t come at the expense of northern audiences who rely on the broadcaster for news content. We are not expendable,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
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Fianna Fáil TD for Cavan-Monaghan Brendan Smith also said it was “unacceptable” that “citizens in Northern Ireland” could not access RTÉ’s news programmes.
“As a public service broadcaster, RTÉ has a duty to provide comprehensive news coverage to all people across Ireland, regardless of geographical location,” he said.
“The current geo-blocking measures undermine this responsibility.”
Mr Smith has called on RTÉ to “address this issue urgently and to communicate their plans for ensuring full accessibility across all 32 counties”.
