Broadcasters renew call for review of fees

LOCAL BROADCAST LICENSE FEES ARE COMPUTED TO RUIN private operators
and drive them out of the market. Permanently.
This is the intuitive feeling of broadcasters, Mr. Mark Benschop, of Benschop Radio; Mr. Glenn
Lall of Kaieteur News; and Attorney-at-Law, Mr. Nigel Blackman, of Hoyte-Blackman
Television (HBTV) when they discussed the long-running controversy with regulator, the
Guyana National Broadcasting Authority (GNBA).
Appearing recently on Benschop’s popular internet radio programme, Straight Up, the
broadcasters contend that the fees are not only uneconomical, but are maintained to give the
government virtual monopoly of this vital sector.
Lall noted that he has ‘read through the lines’ and concluded that it’s evident that the actions by
the GNBA are politically-driven by the government.
“The license fees that they are sending to the broadcasters we just can’t…pay it, we will just
have to shut the place (company) down. I think that they want to shut off a few radio stations,
that’s their aim. You just got to read between the lines, and you will see where there are coming
from,” Lall said.
Lall disclosed that he paid $2.5M for license fee and then pointed out that broadcast fee has also
been introduced.
“They are supper hungry for cash but I find it idiotic and shameful,” the outspoken Lall said.
Blackman endorsed Lall’s thesis and said the move by the GNBA was predictable.
“It was no real surprise to us that the notice was published. I believe that it’s a deliberate attempt
to target certain radio stations. We see with some media houses that exercise their rights in
broadcasting certain things contrary to the government of the day (which) has responded by
being oppressive in withholding ads,” Blackman said.

The well-known attorney noted that it has been some seven to 10 years that his company has
been seeking to resolve what he said is the high cost of licensing fees.
“There has been no solution. There been no discussion (and) no reduction. I think what is
happening is that the broadcasting sector is being discriminated against in an effort to push out
certain entities. Only certain entities' names keep coming up over and over again, and when you
look at those entities and who are their shareholders, they always had a problem with this
government and some with the previous government,’ Blackman contends.
Lall admitted that other than the licensing fees he is forced to pay $600,000 for spectrum fees
adding that in total he spends USD$30,000.00 (G$6M) a year. He argued that this is the highest
around the world. He said in the United States of America it would have cost a mere $4,000.00
(G$800,000). Lall is mystified about the government’s rationale for introducing, and
maintaining, the unconscionably exorbitant fees.
Lall said that he was forced to surrender his broadcasting frequency in the ‘Cinderella County’
because of the irrationally outrageous fees. According to the Kaieteur News publisher, he spends
some G$1M (US$5,000) per month for electricity for a tower covering transmitters and
transformers for his business in Essequibo.
Lall blasted the incumbent Peoples Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) and the A Partnership for
National Unity, Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) coalition governments for “selling dreams”
to a gullible public. Both the Government and opposition have spoken with both sides of their
mouths when it is convenient for them. According to Lall, it was Leader of the Opposition, Mr.
Joe Harmon, in 2013, who had urged broadcasters not to pay the unsustainable fees and even
promised to rectify it when they are elected.
Two years later, the APNU+AFC swept the polls and 63 months later, did absolutely nothing
about the controversy. As a matter of fact, they upped the pressure for media owners to pay the
very uneconomic fees.

“When these guys are out (of office), they give you the moon and stars, they sell you dreams,
impossible dreams that you fall for. When they get in there, they forget the dreams that they were
selling you and they continue like normal. I have seen too much of them. I am tired of them, very
tired of them,” Lall told Benschop during the radio interview.
“GNBA is supposed to be a constitutional body which is totally independent of the politicians.
But yet GNBA has been politicised, that decisions for GNBA are being made by those in
Cabinet. I don’t know and the thing of it is that those who held office before whilst there were
outside of office, they complained about political interference. But, when people get into office,
it’s as though some kind of ghost takes over them that they repeat the same kind of things that
they complained used to happen,” Benschop said.
“I don’t know, something seems to be strange when people take (political) office,”
Benschop observed.