Story posted March 07, 2003
BROADCASTING COMMISSION CITES HOT 102, TVJ AND CORNWALL COMMUNICATIONS FOR BREACHESThe Broadcasting Commission maintains that HOT 102 FM breached the law when it allocated bonus airtime to political advertisers in the lead up to last October's general election. The Commission said between October and January, it conducted an examination of the advertising contracts with three political parties and the licensee, Western Broadcasting Services. Following the examination in January, the Commission said it concluded that the National Democratic Movement received a generous allocation of bonus airtime. It says this is in spite of having spent less than the Jamaica Labour Party and the People's National Party. The Commission said early last month, Western Broadcasting Services supplied the Commission with an analysis of its air-time sold for political commercials and asked that it review its determination of breach. However the commission said it maintained its original finding that preferential treatment was given to the NDM. The Commission said it based its decision on four findings, including Western Broadcasting's failure to present documents on which it allegedly based its breakdown of advertising spent by political parties. In the meantime, the Broadcasting Commission has found Television Jamaica Limited -TVJ and subscriber television provider Cornwall Communications Limited in breach of the Television and Sound Broadcasting regulations. That section bans the transmission of indecent or profane matter except where such matter is transmitted by a subscriber television in an encrypted format. According to the Commission, TVJ breached the regulations by transmitting an episode of the programme "Man Talk" that contained sexually explicit discussions and close-ups of sexual paraphernalia on Sunday January five. The Commission also said it considers TVJ's scheduling of the broadcast at 9 o'clock at night, inappropriate, as the programme was clearly intended for an adult audience. The Commission claimed that no advisory was provided before the programme began. TVJ has been directed to apologise to its viewers for its breach of its licence and has been directed to schedule the programme for 10 o'clock, if its contents can be considered problematic. Meanwhile Cornwall Communications in Montego Bay was found in breach of for not scrambling its transmission of sexually explicit material on January 31. Cornwall Communications has been directed to provide sample tapes of all its local channels for review by the Commission. |
