Stabroek News
June 5, 2001

As the debate on the future of the broadcast media continues the dialogue committee that will be making recommendations will no doubt be looking at a number of precedents. It would be useful for it to get hold of the book `Public service Broadcasting: A Comparative Legal Survey' by Toby Mendel, Head of the Law Programme of Article l9, a leading international human rights NGO based in London. This contains an introduction that summarises some of the general features of state funded broadcasting otherwise known as public service broadcasting followed by a description of the way in which such media are organised and paid for in Australia, Canada, France, Japan, South Africa and the United Kingdom, countries in which, the writer notes, support for publicly funded broadcasters remains strong.

Closer to home, the committee may wish to look at the Barbadian legislation, namely the Broadcasting Act of l980 and the Broadcasting Regulations 2000. Under the former, a Barbados Broadcasting Authority was established which advises the Minister responsible for Information as to the terms and conditions subject to which licences are issued, ensures that these are complied with and performs a number of other functions. The Board of Directors of the Authority comprises the Chief Information officer ex officio and four other persons appointed by the minister. No person can be appointed who has an interest, direct or indirect, in a radio or television station, or any undertaking dealing in related equipment. Decisions are made by majority vote.

That Authority is empowered by the Act to make regulations on a wide variety of issues relating to broadcasting, which it has done. The current regulations, for example, require station identification at regular intervals, the keeping of a very detailed log of the station's daily operations, prohibition of certain broadcasts (for example, any abusive or derogatory comment upon any race, creed or religion, any malicious, scandalous or defamatory matter, any news that the licencee knows to be false or misleading), news broadcasts must adhere to the principle of accuracy, impartiality and fairness in content and presentation, that a fair amount of time is allocated for the broadcasting of political and religious matters and that sponsors, if any, must be clearly identified, at least 60 percent of broadcasting material should be local and regional in content, including current affairs, prose and poetry, drama, music and art, that advertising should not exceed fifteen minutes in any hour, provisions for licence fees (a basic fee plus a small percentage of gross revenue with a cap - B $50,000 = US $25,000 for radio and B $l00,000 = US $50,000 for TV), and a number of other issues. The licences issued to CBC, Starcom and BBS incorporate these provisions.

One can legitimately differ from some of these provisions, such as the way the board of the Authority is appointed, but it shows how in one of the most democratic countries in the region broadcasting media have to comply with a number of requirements, as they do elsewhere. The problem in Guyana is that having started virtually without regulations of any kind and licences having been issued in a random manner station owners have little or no idea of the structure of broadcasting services elsewhere and the normal responsibilities of station owners. No broadcasting station in Guyana today, for example, complies with all the regulations in Barbados.

A structure is needed and the committee have to recommend one after looking at all the relevant precedents and consulting the various stakeholders.