The day I nearly brought RT down

It is interesting to watch Ofcom finally remove the broadcasting licence from the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today (RT). I almost managed to do the job myself about 12 years ago.

Back in the 2000s, a number of bad regimes were rushing into the broadcasting space to try to give themselves a better international image. The Chinese Communist party set up a London branch of its state television network called CCTV, apparently unaware of the hilarity this would cause in the English language.

Meanwhile, the Iranian government started PressTV to push the ayatollahs’ views of the world. It set up its propaganda channel from a roundabout on the Hanger Lane gyratory system, proving again that totalitarian regimes are not always brilliant. Guests for its shows were almost always late, stuck in traffic on the A40 and generally turning up, if at all, about halfway through the programme. The mullahs had not planned for this. Anyhow, they lost their broadcasting licence in 2012 after beaming out forced confessions from Iranian jails.

It took until this year to get RT off the networks, but as I say I almost managed it myself. Back then RT had done a huge advertising campaign across the UK, and I was under the impression that this was a relaunch of the Irish channel RTE. After all, this is how PR firms make their millions. As with the Tate and many other overfunded institutions, I assumed that the Irish broadcaster had done the usual thing of going to a firm for PR advice, which had rinsed it for the usual millions and returned with the suggestion that it drop the ‘E’. Like the Tate spending a fortune to lose the ‘the’.

Anyhow, being a media whore at the time, and not the hermit-like figure I have since become, I said yes when I was asked on to what I imagined to be the revamped Irish broadcaster.