Tuesday, February 9, 2010

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ZNS rejects PLP's demand on airtime By Krystel Rolle ~ Guardian Staff Reporter ~ krystel@nasguard.com: Amid controversy over the interpretation of broadcast rules, the Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas (BCB) has rejected a request by the Progressive Liberal Party for the leader of the Opposition to get equal airtime as the time allotted to the prime minister last week when he made his national address. However, the BCB has also decided against re-airing the prime minister's address at this time. "The issues you have raised are in many respects quite compelling yet in our view they fall short of the mark and are not sufficiently compelling to persuade us to a different view than the ones we previously communicated," said the letter signed by general manager Edwin Lightbourn. "The address to the nation by the prime minister in our view did rise to the level required under the regulations for such a broadcast. In fact, the information presented was deemed to be of such national import that practically every media house carried the broadcast and subsequently provided extensive news cover to the information presented." Lightbourn wrote: "We wish to note though that whereas we would have ordinarily rebroadcast a communication of such import, we decided to defer such action until a later date." The PLP's election coordinator for Elizabeth Dr. Bernard Nottage raised the issue of the prime minister's national address at a news conference on Sunday and expressed the PLP's view that airing the address during an election period violated URCA's broadcast rules. "Notwithstanding the decision by the BCB to allow such a broadcast, in flagrant violation of the code, the BCB has similarly refused to allow the Official Opposition equal time to make a similar broadcast or a rebuttal," Nottage said. "This, in our view, is a clear violation of the terms and spirit of the code and amounts to a policy that seeks to favor one political party to the disadvantage of the other in respect of broadcast time. "As you are fully aware, URCA has the statutory responsibility to ensure that there is a level-playing field in the broadcast of political messages during an election, and therefore we urge URCA to act in a manner that protects and guarantees equal broadcast rights and privileges to the Official Opposition." The PLP has said it will not abide by URCA's new broadcast rules and has condemned them as being unconstitutional. Nottage indicated that as the PLP does not have a broadcast station, it can only defy URCA's code with the cooperation of such stations. He said since the BCB has violated the code for the prime minister, the PLP wishes it to violate the code for the Opposition as well. Last night, Nottage said he found it interesting that the BCB axed any re-airing of the prime minister's national address at this time. "If it is of such national import as he said in the previous paragraph then why would they decide to defer re-broadcasting it which they would ordinarily do? Obviously, they believe that it has an adverse effect when you look at what the regulations or the interim code actually says or if it doesn't, then why not rebroadcast it as many times as they wish?" he asked. Nottage added that the PLP had already filed an official complaint to URCA on the matter. Vincent Wallace-Whitfield, an URCA case officer, said yesterday that the Authority received a copy of the complaint but had yet to receive word from BCB officials. He said the PLP's complaint was that Ingraham was in breach of paragraph seven of the political broadcast code. Paragraph seven states that a political party that is a governing party, or a coalition of parties forming the government, may purchase four 15-minute segments of airtime on radio and an equal number of such programs on television for the purpose of inviting support of the programs for the governing party or parties. However, it adds that "during an election period no purchase may be made under [the above mentioned paragraph] and no use may be made of the airtime so purchased. Any program broadcast under this code should be made by a senator or member of Parliament." "The argument as I understood it is that the prime minister was purchasing airtime for the purpose of inviting support for the program of the government or the governing party and in that case then presumably he was purchasing 15 minutes during an election period which would have been in breach of this particular part of the code," Wallace-Whitfield explained. He added that if BCB addressed the matter to the PLP's satisfaction that would have been the end of it. "I guess ZNS will deal with the matter accordingly, make some sort of formal response and then depending on what the response is, it would determine whether URCA has to get involved or not," Wallace-Whitfield said. He noted that all of the local TV stations carried Ingraham's message. Tuesday February 09, 2010