Screenshot: RTL

Your partner, our partner – same, same? RTL mixes advertising and journalistic content. That’s illegal.

Do you already know this show? RTL advertises it in the „Highlights“ section - a piece of junk on RTL Play: The „Energietipps“. The journalistic gloss can therefore be found where other RTL television shows are also shown - in conjunction with „plain text“ or „No Art on Air“.

The little hook: The show „Energietipps“ is probably nothing more than advertising. And advertising must be labeled as such according to EU law. There is a difference whether you, as a viewer, see an advertising clip and know: Here a company is trying to persuade me to consume with a particularly positive portrayal. Or one thinks: Here, critical journalists report with the greatest possible objectivity on something that I can take seriously.

After all, RTL is still hanging a little fig leaf in front of the „Energy Tips“. The program begins with a short intro of greasy advertising music, which is hard to buy off a good mood. A distinctive male voice sounds: „Energy Tips. Together with the Climate Agency - your partner for energy and climate“.

Cryptic. Because what exactly is done in the program „together“ with the Climate Agency remains unclear. Does anyone get any money here? Does the Climate Agency determine the content and RTL does the production? What exactly is the partnership with this company? And why „your“ partner? Is the Climate Agency a partner of the audience? Or has RTL perhaps mistakenly assumed that it actually means „Our Partner“ or „Our Advertising Partner“?

A look at the program reveals little. The 3- to 4-minute format is structured like a normal report: A voice-over narrator guides you through the events. Then, most often, a „normal“ consumer appears who uses a product or wants to save energy and tells something about it. And then there is an „expert“ who gives tips. What is striking is that in every „report“ it is the same expert who speaks, namely Sarah Juchems from the Climate Agency. The company’s logo is usually displayed in large numbers. Sometimes she says things like: To install solar panels, you need basic advice from the Climate Agency. But she doesn’t say this like an advertisement, but in the tone of a neutral expert. Everything seems as if it were a normal TV report.

The impression of a „serious“ and neutral program is also triggered by the logo of the Luxembourg government. Because yes: The Climate Agency is a „groupement d’intérêt économique“: A public-private partnership, where state money is collected from taxpayers and where profits flow back into the pockets of entrepreneurs. When it comes to mobility, the Climate Agency recommends electric cars, and not, for example, the much more climate-friendly public transport, which is also free and should actually be a climate project of the government. Strange that such advertisements are also made with the support of the government. But is the Climate Agency perhaps more concerned with profit and less about the climate when promoting Teslas and solar modules?

But in any case, we are of course most interested in what the relationship with RTL is now. The „Energy Tips“ therefore act like a journalistic report in which the Klima Agence is asked as an expert. The Klima Agence - which was previously called My Energy - is a client of RTL’s advertising company IP. And in some mobile views of the RTL.lu website you can also see it: The small line called „Advertisement“ directly above the „Energy Tips“. If you click on RTL-Play, however, nothing of it is visible anymore.

It is also not clear whether the „Energy Tips“ are actually produced by the advertising company IP or directly by RTL. So commercials should actually be IP-related. The „journalists“ of RTL should have nothing to do with the production of commercials. However, the Climate Agency regularly posts photos of the „expert“ Sarah Juchems in front of a microphone in the recording studio on Facebook: „A look behind the scenes of the RTL Expert“.

Particularly astonishing is the TV reportage in the RTL Journal, where the Climate Agency is reported on throughout positively - and not at all critically. Or the show „Dir hutt d’Wuert“, where two representatives of the Climate Agency were able to advertise their company. Here, purely journalistic formats are being abused to serve as a PR platform for a profit-oriented company.

The reasons behind this remain a mystery: Either RTL and IP receive money from the Climate Agency at least for the show „Energietipps“ - and they do not label it as advertising, as is forbidden. Or RTL and IP don’t get any money at all and advertise for free in this and other formats - which would not only be stupid, but also violate all journalistic principles. Sad but true: Both variants are equally likely.