Latest update January 18th, 2025 7:00 AM
K/News, CN Sharma, among six receiving radio licences
Finally! Chairman of the GNBA, Leslie Sobers, poses with the new recipients of radio licences. Second from right is Adam Harris, representative of National Media and Broadcasting Company Limited.
A little more than six years after protests against the Bharrat Jagdeo government for the controversial issuance of radio licences to the former president’s close friends and party members, the new administration has managed to distribute a few…mere baby steps in correcting an injustice.
The issuance yesterday to a number of media owners would come belatedly and be a bittersweet moment.
Sweet because the wait is over; bitter because the coveted frequencies to operate those radio stations have already been hogged by a few.
The ceremony took place at GNBA’s headquarters on Lamaha Street.
There was little, the current administration is saying, that can be done to reverse the arbitrary distributions by Jagdeo. His party, the People’s Progressive Party, and even a former minister, and close friend Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop, were all beneficiaries.
The licences were not supposed to be distributed until reforms and consultations with the Opposition, in keeping with a standing arrangement between the then administration and the Opposition, which is the Government now.
However, Jagdeo went ahead and secretly issued the licences in the last days in office, in 2011.
The entities receiving the new licences yesterday were the National Media and Broadcasting Company Limited, a sister company of Kaieteur News; Blackman and Sons which is linked to HBTV; CNS Channel Six; Brutal Grouping, Two Brothers Inc. and Panicle.
National Media, according to Adam Harris, Editor-in-Chief of Kaieteur News, is hitting the ground running, and is expected to start broadcasting in a few weeks’ time.
“We are of course planning on lots of local programming and news to keep the people informed. It will be the hard-hitting material that Guyana is accustomed to from us.”
Chairman of the Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA), Leslie Sobers, disclosed that while there is little space for new radio stations in the primary area (Georgetown and the coastland up to West Berbice and Parika), it is the intention of the Authority to licence radio stations every three years.
According to Chandra Narine Sharma, proprietor of CNS Channel 6, it is has been a long, long wait…over two decades. His wife, Savitri Singh-Sharma, made it clear that she was not sure that her ailing husband, who was host of the popular call-in programme, ‘Justice For All’, believed that he would have received one.
It was widely felt that Jagdeo and his administration deliberately withheld any licences from entities that were critical of him and his tenure as president.
Sobers explained that the issuance of the licences was “fit and proper” and the applicants were “lingering” in the system for a while. “All things being considered they have brought themselves into full compliance with the regulations governing the issuance of radio licences.”
Another recipient, CEO of Brutal Grouping, Christian Duncan, said he is expecting to be on-air within two months’ time.
“We own Brutal Tracks Recording Studio. We’ve been in the business of recording local talent from about 2004, so this allows us a channel so that we can allow the rest of the country to hear the works that are being manufactured on the local scale and in the Caribbean,” Duncan said.
Meanwhile, Sobers announced that the GNBA’s board is examining moving away from annual licencing of radio frequencies. “We’re contemplating a longer period of licencing, maybe two or three years for the start,” he reported.
Sobers pointed out that the law makes provision for as many as 10 years to be granted on a licence. However, he noted that the Authority’s monitoring process will need to be strengthened. “We’re trying to make things as easy as could be for broadcasters.”
The National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) was on hand yesterday to distribute the frequencies that were allocated for the radio stations.
While there has been intense interest for broadcasting operations in the primary areas, a number of the new licencees are intending to send their signals on the coastland. These include National Media and Brutal Group.
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