24 radio, cable, TV licences ready for hand out…Broadcasters have to pay licence fee of $2.5 million

Jun 20, 2013 News

---

 

24 radio, cable, TV licences ready for hand out
Revelations by Bibi Shadick, the chairperson of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA) show that Radio Guyana Inc. and Telcor Cultural Broadcasting have five frequencies from which to undertake radio broadcasts. However, one of those frequencies is being used to transmit signals to different parts of the country.
The two stations are among 24 radio, cable and TV licences which are ready for handout by the GNBA once the approved licencees pay up the licence and the spectrum fees. Of those, there are eight TV licences, eight are radio licences and six are cable TV licences. There was no word on the plight of the other existing television stations in the capital.

It was Prime Minister Samuel Hinds who announced in the National Assembly that former President Bharrat Jagdeo had handed out 11 new radio licences in November, 2011.
Among those new licencees were Radio Guyana Inc., owned by Jagdeo’s best friend Dr. Ranjisinghi Ramroop and Telcor Cultural Broadcasting, which has as its directors Jagdeo’s niece Kamini Persaud and Ruth Baljit, who is the sister of Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Mr. Robert Persaud.
These two licencees, the Prime Minister had said, were each granted five radio frequencies. However, yesterday, Shadick said the GNBA approved six radio frequencies for these two licencees.
Telcor has 90.1 (Georgetown), 91.5 (New Amsterdam), 104.9 (Skeldon,Corentyne), 103.3 (Linden) 104.9 (Bartica) 89.7 (Essequibo).
Radio Guyana Inc. has 89.5 (Georgetown) 89.3 (Essequibo) 89.7 (New Amsterdam) 106.9 (Skeldon, Corentyne) 107.3 (Linden) and 106.9 (Bartica).
“Me ain’t know. I just calling out what I have,” Shadick told reporters when it was indicated that five frequencies are what the Prime Minister had announced.
The licences which are ready for handout are not new. They are among the 36 broadcasters (including those approved by Jagdeo) which existed at the time the new Broadcasting Act came into force on August 28, 2012.
The Prime Minister had also announced that Mirror, the newspaper of the ruling People’s Progressive Party was granted five radio frequencies. However, the Mirror has not yet submitted all its documentation to be approved for a licence under the new Act.
All the broadcasters were given permission to continue broadcasting and then to apply to the GNBA for a licence under new regulations of the Broadcasting Act.
Approved licencees have to pay two fees before they are handed their licences. They have to pay a spectrum fee and a licencee fee.
The licence fee was set at a minimum of $2.5 million by Cabinet – the Council of government Ministers chaired by the President.
Ms Shadick said that Cabinet has directed that the licence fee be calculated at three percent of gross income for the preceding year, but it should be not less than $2.5 million.
So even in a case where three percent of the licencee’s gross income is less than the $2.5 million, that licencee still has to pay $2.5 million. In the case of new companies which have been set up and which applied for licences but do not have a prior income, they would have to pay the $2.5 million licence fee.
Of the licencees which have now been approved, Shadick said that only two of them are required to pay more than $2.5 million, since a calculation of three percent of their gross income exceeds the minimum fee.
There is no clear cap on what the spectrum fee should be. Shadick said that the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) determines what the spectrum fee should be based on technical aspects of the transformer such as signal strength and the height of the transmission tower.
Ms Shadick said that licencees have to pay spectrum fees per frequency. So in the case of Radio Guyana and Telcor, they would both have to pay for each of the frequencies they were granted.
The licences which the GNBA is ready to handout once the fees are paid up would expire at the end of the year.
But to get that licence, the station was informed that it has to pay two separate fees to the GNBA. The fees CNS TV 6 has to pay are $680,000 for the use of the frequency under which Channel 6 broadcasts and a licence fee of $2.5 million.
One of the approved licencees is CNS TV 6, owned by Chandra Narine Sharma. He intends to query how the GNBA arrived at its figures.
He has been asked to pay the minimum licence fee plus $680,000 as the spectrum fee. This he does not understand, since in the past, he said, he paid $320, 000 to the NFMU and nothing has changed about his frequency.
Shadick has said that the GNBA is not yet processing new applications.
She said that the broadcast spectrum operated as if the spectrum was “squatting area” and so the GNBA Board has sought to first “regularize” what currently obtains before proceeding to the new applications.
Shadick said the GNBA has not yet decided on a deadline by which approved licencees must pay the spectrum and licence fees.
Of the broadcasters currently in operation, nine TV stations, three radio stations and two cable operators are yet to meet all the requirements in order to be approved for licences.
The GNBA has also not decided on how much more time they would have to comply.
The Board at a recent meeting also agreed to the establishment of a Monitoring Committee, which would replace the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting and the Media Monitoring Unit.
Shadick said that Members to that Committee would be named once they accept the offer to sit on the Committee.

---

---