It MUST Be The Silly Season…, They Are Talking About New TV Stations

Well if there was a confirmation that the silly season is upon us it came yesterday, when Joseph Atherly started talking about broadcasting in Barbados and the “intention” of the Government to grant a new TV license.

Rev. Atherley later elaborated on issues examined at the meeting: ”While no decision has been taken yet as regards numbers, we are considering it, but in a context where we are looking to modernise the regulatory framework around broadcasting, both radio and television.”…

“….Liberalisation in terms of television will take place, but it is not that tomorrow we will issue a licence. We will modernise the regulatory framework, broaden the policy framework within which we operate, to capture those emerging technologies and those broadcast television entities which want to be thematic and perhaps be narrowly focused in their transmissions. All of that is in the mix.”

 

Politicians from every party have ALL promised to grant another TV licence , and then found some reason not to (“We need to get things into place”) We on the Margin think that there have been promises of another station for as long as there has been a CBC.

 

The irony of this is that advances in technology have largely made the local tv license an irrelevant  relic.  Satellite broadcasting comes direct from the USA potentially to every home.  The fragmentation of the TV viewing public into micro markets by cable, means that very few people watch local TV anyway. On a broader scale, the rise of high speed internet means that more and more people spend their evenings in front of the computer rather than in front of the TV.  And if you are thinking about the TV license as a means of control over the flow of information, that concept has been swept on to the trash heap of history by the rise of the blogs.

 

The politicians may well find that by the time they are ready to grant a TV license, no one may want one any more.

 

Marginal.