CCTV not granted a broadcast licence

– Hinds says concerns arise from wrong assumptions

By Michael Younge –

Acting President Samuel Hinds has sharply dismissed assertions that China Central TV (CCTV) has been granted a broadcast licence to operate in Guyana ahead of several local organisations, communities, and interested stakeholders.
Hinds, who appeared on Television Guyana’s Under the Microscope Programme on Monday, said that the concerns arose from incorrect assumptions, as he debunked claims that the government of Guyana had violated its own broadcast laws to the detriment and exclusion of its own people.

“CCTV is not broadcasting in Guyana and therefore the question of licensing or not licensing does not arise,” Hinds said firmly, as he declared that “there was nothing clandestine or secret about the arrangements” with the Chinese government on the matter.
Setting the record straight after attempts by other government officials to do so at the insistence of local media, the acting president disclosed that government’s sole intention was to offer a variety of information available in other parts of the developing and developed world to its citizens.
“A lot of information has been available for a long time on this matter, but apparently some people have failed to take note of it…,” he said, during the programme, which would have reached thousands of Guyanese on Monday evening.
According to Hinds, the administration was simply facilitating the content as per an agreement with the government of China, as he pointed that it has done the same by allowing access to content from BBC World, CNN International, and several other media outfits developed by various countries that are desirous of broadcasting to people across the globe.
He maintained that this was done following the advent of satellite broadcasting in the 1980s and, there arose, in many countries, broadcasts to the world by many entities, such as CNN International, BBC World, German, French and Russian stations, and, in time, CCTV.
Mutual desire
“The information made available and the formats used by these different countries are not very different,” the acting president admitted.  Hinds’ comments on the television issues came in light of several questions posed by Alliance For Change parliamentarian Catharine Hughes and A Partnership for National Unity Member of Parliament Joseph Harmon.
“The licensed broadcaster, National Communications Network (NCN) Inc, is relaying CCTV programmes for 18 hours or more, on one of its assigned channels.  This situation is very much similar to that which obtained when Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) programmes used to be relayed on one of the terrestrial television channels in Guyana.  When TBN relayed broadcast programmes were discontinued, it was not on the basis of TBN being a foreign programme, but, rather, on the basis of a dispute over who had the rights to the terrestrial television channel,” he disclosed in an earlier statement in the day.
Hinds explained at length that in the course of discussions of the Guyana-China Joint Commission, the matter arose of CCTV programmes being made available in Guyana.  This mutual desire was eventually formalised in an agreement between the governments of Guyana and China, in 2004.
“Under that agreement, China Radio and Television Corporation (CCTV) provides, to NCN, receiving and transmitting facilities which then become the property of NCN, after which, in negotiations on specific terms, NCN would re-broadcast specific programmes of CCTV over one of its (NCN’S) assigned channels.  This is a business arrangement of NCN, not unlike the arrangement under which TBN was relayed in Guyana,” Hinds offered.
At that time, Channel 29/Cable 80 was earmarked to NCN for part-time use in re-broadcasting CCTV programmes, but in early 2011, NCN began utilising that previously earmarked channel for the new ‘Learning Channel’.  Consequently, in 2012, when the re-broadcasts were to begin, Channel 27/Cable 78 was assigned as a substitute.
The controversy started about two weeks after veteran journalist Enrico Woolford penned a letter expressing concern about the broadcasts by the Chinese while seeking to provoke a justifiable response from the ruling administration. His letter was given the media limelight and opportunistic political personalities quickly seized the moment to score mileage from the letter and its assertions.
Even communications consultant and media expert Kit Nascimento added his voice to what had become a public debate, accusing the government of breaking its own laws.