Last week’s debate in the House of Assembly on the guarantee of a $40.6 million loan for the government owned television and radio station highlighted the Administration’s disconnect from reality. It underscored a lack of appreciation for the paradigm shift in communications and information technology and the fact that the CBC business plan is now a failed 1960’s model to which the Prime Minister seems to be wedded.
When CBC was launched there was no CNN, no Direct TV and no internet. Television sets came with 13 channels and channel 8 was the sole channel for Barbados television viewers. Today there are scores of channels, multiple news services and an explosion of radio and video streaming services on the internet. CBC with its single TV station and its radio broadcast service as well as its multi choice TV continues to see itself as a broadcasting company in the 20th century mode and has increasingly become a propaganda arm of Bay Street.
Barbadians are being asked to sink millions of their tax dollars into a failed and outworn business model at a time when we are facing the most serious economic crisis of our post independence history. S&P is poised to further downgrade Barbados’ credit rating and has sent a message that we have to curtail our deficit spending or suffer the consequences of higher interest payments and worse.
A growing number of people from many disciplines and political persuasions recognize that government needs to reorder its priorities and get its fiscal house in order. Instead it is business as usual at Bay Street as government clings to an anachronistic institution that has not adapted to economic reality and is heavily over staffed for the functions that it performs.
For some time it has been recognized that CBC’s future lies in the production of video content and the development of value added products feeding into an explosion of worldwide demand for new documentary video featuring cultural, historical and environmental subjects. It is patently obvious that CBC, as it is presently run, cannot continue without massive periodic injections of working capital. As long as this pipeline of financing is assured, there is little likelihood that there will be any incentive for CBC to change its modus operandi. Other media houses either make a profit or go out of business. CBC should be no different.
As we continue to develop our capacity to deliver streaming video new business models for producing and delivering news and information will develop and replace the old broadcasting system. Growing competition from private companies will expand the opportunity for a wider discussion of the issues of the day with a wide diversity of views and opinions. News will no longer be controlled or manipulated through a monopoly television broadcast service controlled by government. Without major adjustments to its business plan and operational methods CBC’s revenue base will be in a continual state of decline and the demands on the taxpayer to support this dinosaur will continue to rise.
Enough is enough. Issue new TV licenses with appropriate conditionalities, put CBC up for sale and let market forces do the rest.
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