THE CCTV CONTROVERSY

Feb 22, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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The controversy over the presence of China Central Television (CCTV) in Guyana is over. It has now been clarified that what is happening is that the Chinese broadcast is being transmitted on one of the frequencies assigned to the National Communications Network (NCN) and not independently by CCTV.
This effectively settles the mini-storm that had developed over this issue and which saw two sets of explanations being offered by the government. These explanations were seen by some as being contradictory, but upon closer examination, they were not.
The first explanation from the Head of the Presidential Secretariat stated that the government had signed an agreement with the Chinese government to allow for the transmission and that a call had been made to the Head of the NFMU to give effect to this decision by assigning a channel or frequency.
This explanation led to charges that the government was confirming that it had breached the broadcasting laws by granting a channel to an unlicensed entity.
It was left to the Prime Minister to fill in the missing dots by pointing out that NCN was using one of its assigned channels to transmit the CCTV programmes.
This explanation is not at odds with what the Head of the Presidential Secretariat had said. In order to broadcast, one first needs a broadcast licence. NCN has such a licence; CCTV does not.
Therefore CCTV cannot transmit other than through a channel that is assigned to another television station. Or, alternatively, it has to apply for its own broadcast licence.
No such licence has been granted by the new National Broadcast Authority and logically, therefore, questions were raised as to how CCTV was being allowed to transmit.
It has now been clarified that CCTV has not established a station in Guyana. They have no licence; their programs are being relayed on a channel assigned to the NCN.
The National Broadcast Authority grants broadcast licences but the responsibility for assigning channels is that of the National Frequency Management Unit.
There is nothing unusual about the State-owned communications company being granted multiple channels based on its licence.
NCN has one licence, but is assigned multiple frequencies. It has three radio channels and its television signals can be had in different areas on different channels. In Georgetown, it can be had on channel 11 while in Berbice it is received on a different channel.
There is also nothing unusual also for NCN to have on reserve more than one channel. Thus, a call to the NFMU requesting the use of one of these assigned and reserved channels is not in violation of any law.
Neither is there any breach of the gentleman’s agreement between the former President and the former Leader of the Opposition, to wit, that no new licences will be granted prior to the passage of broadcast legislation.
It requires no new licence for CCTV’s programmes to be broadcast on an assigned frequency of NCN. Apart from Channel 11, there is an educational channel, and it was agreed that there will also be a special channel which will be given to the religious community. This will no doubt eventually happen through the assignment of a frequency from the NFMU.
Why then was there such a strong reaction to the CCTV programmes being aired on a separate channel. Apart from the fact that the full facts were not public, much of the hullabaloo that was raised about CCTV has its origins in two sets of concerns.
The first is the insecurity that the transmission of Chinese programmes has on the American cultural domination in Guyana. The Chinese have already become the largest trade partner with Latin America and there is the fear that CCTV can further undermine US influence in the Region. The Americans will therefore be trying to diffuse this growing economic and now increasing cultural influence by the Chinese.
The second concern is that there are many persons who have applied for licences and are still awaiting word on their applications. Thus when they saw the channel dedicated to Chinese programmes, they felt that once again their applications were being bypassed and the Chinese were enjoying unfair and preferential treatment.
The two issues need to be addressed separately. In particular, there is need for the new Broadcast Authority to assure all applicants for broadcast licences that there will be fairness in the consideration of their applications. The real focus should therefore not be about CCTV, but about when and how these applications for radio and television licences will be considered.
Guyanese must not get carried away by facetious arguments that the broadcast spectrum is limited and therefore it is worrying that a frequency has been assigned to a foreign power, and that this will lessen the opportunities for regional and local stations to gain entry into the system.
The problem is not the finite limitation of the spectrum. The problem is just how many television and radio stations can be sustained in such a small economy.
Guyana probably has the highest per capita television stations in the world. Right now there are more than five radio stations in operation and nearly twenty-five television stations. This is far too much for a small country like Guyana.
In such a scenario, Guyana will not get value for the use of its spectrum because to make all these stations viable licensing and frequency fees will have to be kept low. And when they are kept low, it means that the main beneficiaries will be those with licences and not the taxpayers.

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