PM suspends licences of channels 6, 9 for 48 hrs
-following advice from broadcast committee
By Patrick Denny
Stabroek News
December 20, 2002
Following advice from the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting (ACB) Prime Minister Sam Hinds yesterday suspended the licences of CNS Channel 6 and NBTV Channel 9 for 48 hours with effect from midnight last night for several breaches.
The two stations will be off the air until midnight tomorrow. Both stations had been previously warned by the PM - who has responsibility for the broadcast sector - about transgressions based on the advice of the ACB which was established out of the now suspended dialogue between President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Desmond Hoyte. The stations had been warned then that further breaches could result in a suspension of their licence.
Channel 6's licensee C N Sharma told Stabroek News yesterday that he received the letter at 4:15 pm and considered it unfair and unjust to be notified of a suspension at that time of the afternoon to cease broadcasting at midnight given the station's contracts with its advertisers. He has referred the letters to his attorney.
Dr Grantley Walrond, who is responsible for the operations at NBTV Channel 9, and himself hosts a talk show, "Spotlight" was unable to comment as he said that the letter from the Prime Minister advising the station of the suspension of its licence had not been received. He promised to offer a comment when he had received and studied it. NBTV's management was also consulting with its lawyers on the issue.
The ACB advised the suspension of the licences because the management of the two stations failed to respond to letters from it notifying them of the infringement which occurred on December 4 and 11, on the Sunrise Show hosted by Clem David and NBTV on November 6 on the Wake Up Guyana show hosted by Basil Bradshaw and on December 11, on the At Home with Roger programme hosted by Roger Moore.
With respect to the offending programmes hosted by David that were aired on December 4 and 11, the Prime Minister in his letter said the ACB had advised him that the December 4, broadcast constitutes an infringement ... in that it is likely to incite to crime and to lead to public disorder". The December 11 broadcast, the ACB advised, "is likely to encourage or incite racial hatred and to lead to public disorder".
The PM's missive said that the station did not respond to letters dated December 10 and 16 notifying it of the infringements and asking for a response and therefore, in accordance with the ACB's advice and the relevant sections of the Post and Telegraph Act and the Wireless Telegraphy Regulations, its licence was being suspended from midnight Thursday, December 19, until midnight Saturday, December 21, 2002.
With respect to NBTV Channel 9, the Prime Minister's letter said that the ACB advised that the Wake Up Guyana show hosted by Bradshaw and aired on November 6 "constitutes an infringement ... in that it is likely to incite racial hatred and you have failed to ensure that the programme was presented with due accuracy."
In respected to the December 11 programme hosted by Moore, the Prime Minister's letter said, "it is likely to lead to public disorder and you have failed to ensure that the programme was presented with due accuracy and impartiality". The correspondence also said that the station did not respond to letters sent to it on November 28 and December 17 notifying it of the infringements.
Stabroek News was unable to reach Bradshaw and Moore but David contended that the ACB's action is clearly outside the bounds of what it was originally set up to do. He called the ACB's approach to the media anachronistic and "a complete humbug" to the operations of the media. He accused the ACB of taking on a defensive approach on behalf of the government.
David also sees the move as an attempt by the government to muzzle the media, cautioning that if that is its intentions it was going down the wrong road.
He added that he received the correspondence from the ACB but had not looked at it because of its intent to pronounce on editorial content rather than give advice.
The Guyana Press Association (GPA) in a statement yesterday called the notice given to the stations "unprecedented in the world and in the history of broadcasting when no national emergency exists."
The GPA statement said that "the ultimatum by a government ministry and the threat of suspension by the Leader of the Government Business, the Prime Minister cannot by any stretch of imagination be in keeping with the letter and spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding between the President and the Leader of the Opposition dated November 7, 2001 and the Terms of Reference of the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting."
The GPA noted too that the suspension order delivered after 4 pm not only forces the stations to break contractual arrangements with advertisers, producers, programmers and audiences but left "absolutely no recourse for a fair hearing or a just, reasonable and balanced response from the television stations."
The Prime Minister appointed the three members of the ACB but President Jagdeo under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding he signed with Opposition Leader Hoyte, appointed the chairman, Pat Dial, and the Leader of the Opposition and the Private Sector nominated the other two members Ron Case and Carlton James, respectively.
The MOU was signed on November 7, and provides for the ACB to tender recommendations and advice to the Prime Minister, which he must accept.
The ACB has come in for severe criticism this year for not acting on numerous perceived breaches by many of the stations of their licences including Channels 6 and 9. A notable case was the broadcast of a tape by February 23 prison escapee Andrew Douglas while posing with a gun. Many members of the public have complained about the approach taken by the ACB in seeking to use moral suasion on the stations instead of applying sanctions. The ACB was set up after many years of concern about racial hatred and falsehoods being peddled on TV stations.
