Lauterkeitskommission rejects complaint against Radio Basel
On Friday, the Commission for Fair Trading dismissed a complaint against Radio Basel for its publication of listener figures in spring 2011. The complainant, Matthias Hagemann, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Radio Basilisk, had filed the complaint for misleading the advertising market.
Radio Basel had claimed via print advertising and on the Internet that it had over 100,000 listeners in February/March, who were said to have listened to the station on average every day. The principles of the Fairness Commission had not been violated. In addition, the information was sufficiently, clearly and truthfully declared, according to Radio Basel. After the station had submitted the RAdiocontrol listener data for the two months, the First Chamber of the Fairness Commission decided to reject the complaint.
According to the Commission, anyone who makes incorrect or misleading statements about their goods and services is acting unfairly. The information provided by Radio Basel on the number of listeners was factually correct. Whether the survey methods are representative and the defined intervals are appropriate must be regulated within the industry. This does not yet constitute unfairness or misleading information.
The complainant, Mathias Hagemann, regrets this decision. The Fairness Commission had not decided on the matter itself. The Commission's reasoning shows that it is avoiding the actual legal question. The consequence of this is that a radio station can claim that it had 100,000 listeners in March 2011 (on a certain day at some point), even if the truly representative semester figures from Publica Data for the first half of 2011 show just 74,000 listeners. The Fairness Commission therefore did not rule on the actual complaint as to what exactly constitutes a representative survey method.
