Dear Editor,
I would like to make a few points clear for the public about where I, as a member of the Guyana National Broadcast Authority (GNBA) stand on the matter of the issuance of the 12 radio licences. It is highly irregular for me to write like this, but I believe that the recent declarations by Minister Nagamootoo that I am chairing the committee looking into these matters, afford me the opportunity to tell the public what we have been doing, since it is my fundamental belief that we have an obligation to do so in a democracy.
These radio licences issued by Mr Bharrat Jagdeo were illegal; about this I have no doubt, and I have written more than once condemning them before I became a member of the authority. I was at the meeting with Minister Nagamootoo where he expressed the opinion that we must not let our actions to rescind the illegal licences, stop us from issuing new ones. I don’t remember him saying that we have to disregard the fact that they were illegally issued and must be rescinded.
At no time have I wavered in my total conviction that the 12 radio licences were issued illegally, since firstly, there was no Broadcast Authority and secondly, there was no Advisory Committee on Broadcasting in place at the time. There were also the agreements of the (a) bi-partisan Board on Broadcasting, (b) the dialogue and (c) the communiqué in place, which in my opinion legally prevented this action by Mr Jagdeo.
First I want to say that this is not the reason why we have not issued any new radio licences or indeed any new television licences.
Editor, we did not in effect ever have any broadcast regulations in place. Even after the issuance of the Broadcast Act, Number 17 of 2011 and illegally activated in 2012, there were no real regulations being enforced. The government of the day, as preoccupied as it was with control of what broadcasters were saying about its corruption and mismanagement, produced and enforced an act which was more intended to curb free speech than to establish any regulations which would inform broadcasting in the public interest, and respond to convenience and necessity.
It is that which has occupied us since I became the Chairman of the Licensing, Fees and Legal Matters Committee of the GNBA. The instrument appointing me to this authority is dated 12th October 2015. So the media must understand that prior to that date there was no Broadcast Authority appointed by the APNU+AFC coalition government. I believe that the government was waiting for the three-year contract of the PPP GNBA members, to expire in September 2015 before naming the new authority.
Since November we have established the zones for broadcasting, ie, primary, secondary, tertiary and community zones for both radio and television, and we have reduced the rates for TV broadcasting more in keeping with the ability of the broadcasters to pay.
Most importantly we have begun to formulate standards for broadcasting which were never done before; eg, if we issue a licence for the primary zone of Georgetown and environs we expect that the licensee will deliver a signal which is evenly distributed throughout the area they are licensed to serve for the convenience of their viewers. In addition they must not play any programme with a rating of higher than PG during the day, PG13 after 7 pm and PG 17 only after 10 pm; that at no time will any station be allowed to play a TV M (mature audience) programme in Guyana, and this includes music videos since many music videos currently aired in Guyana would have a rating of higher than TV M and perhaps even TV R. In the US such videos could only be aired on cable systems, not broadcast as a mass media.
Broadcasters must not interrupt programming with local advertising disrupting the incoming live broadcasts they are using from whatever source these derive; they should truncate the advertising and go back to the programme for the convenience of their viewers when the incoming signal returns to the show being aired, and not cause several seconds of the show to be missed thereby causing inconvenience to their viewers. They should not have extended periods of blank screens with “Please stand by” signs; it is a discourtesy to their viewers which must stop. They must not play more than 15 minutes of advertising per hour; they must finish all programmes once started and we will not, on behalf of the public, allow the cutting off of programmes which are not finished to play something else. In other words I see our primary function as being to regulate broadcasting for the convenience of our viewers.
But most of all, Editor, we need to find out how many radio and TV stations we can legitimately accommodate, given the low advertising pie in Guyana. So we would like to commission a survey of the Guyana marketplace, especially Georgetown where more than 80% of the TV and radio stations are concentrated, since the lack of income is contributing to the low level of standards in the industry.
I have always held the view that allowing competition to establish the number of stations we can have is not the right approach. In the final analysis with so many stations vying for such a small advertising pie, there will be poor operational standards and the public will suffer. At this moment the outstanding broadcast fees owed to the GNBA hovers around $121 million. It is clear that they have economic difficulties in the broadcast industry; it is for this reason we have not addressed this issue of new licences, especially in Georgetown for either radio or TV as yet. The delay has nothing to do with the 12 licences issued through the illegal actions of Mr Jagdeo.
And there are other problems: for example, the PPP has a radio station on the air spewing PPP propaganda all the time. What do we as an authority do when five or six other political parties approach us to request that they also must be given a radio licence? We can’t tell them no! To say no would be to violate their constitutional right to free speech. What do we do when the Americans approach us to put Voice of America on the air here in Guyana?
We can’t say no since we have a allowed a foreign channel on the air here in Guyana in contravention of the act. Since our act says that only Guyanese and those Caricom countries which will allow Guyanese to own TV and radio licences in their territory will be allowed to own broadcast stations here.
Also we are introducing a method for both radio and television stations, even those already on the air, to tell us what their programming philosophy will be, so that we do not end up licensing stations which are essentially playing the same thing. We need our stations to cover all tastes and not all stations trying to be all things to all people; there is only confusion there. So not only do we have to level the playing field, we have to establish a proper playing field as well.
I have many friends at the Kaieteur News, including Mr Glen Lall, and I want to assure him that in the end, justice and fair play will prevail in the granting of the radio licences and that in our mind revocation is our preferred policy but we are just looking at the mechanism of the action we will use to achieve it.
To this end I and legal members of my committee have already consulted Sir Fenton Ramsahoye to advise us on a way to level the playing field. And we are going to challenge these licences issued by Mr Jagdeo, but the public must understand that we can’t challenge it without asking the judge to declare that Mr Jagdeo’s actions were illegal. On the other hand, and this is legitimate legal advice we have obtained on the matter, we can also go back to parliament and modify the act to level the playing field, in fact at this time it is very high up on our possible courses of action. We have already met with the TV broadcasters and we have outlined much of what is contained herein; we will soon meet the radio broadcasters and then the cable operators who also, we believe, have legal issues as to how they have obtained licences to operate.
So even though we have changed governments since May 2015, the current Broadcast Authority has only really been functioning for less than four months. And we need a little time to get this right.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
