DESPITE revisiting a recent investigation into the allocation of bonus airtime for political advertisers during last October’s general elections, and protests by HOT 102, the Broadcasting Commission still insists that the radio station breached the law.

The Commission in January concluded, from an examination of advertising contracts between three political parties and the owners of the station — Western Broadcasting Services Ltd — that the National Democratic Movement (NDM) received a generous allocation of bonus airtime despite having spent less than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) or the People’s National Party (PNP).

In early February, Western Broadcasting supplied the Commission with an analysis of its air-time sold for political commercials and asked the commission to review its determination of a breach.

However, the commission has maintained its original finding that the licensee gave preferential treatment to the NDM, thereby committing a beach of Section 21 (2) of the Broadcasting and Radio Re-diffusion Act.

That section of the Act requires that broadcast licensees be fair when allocating time for political broadcasts. In particular, whenever broadcasters allocate time “free of charge or at a rate which is less than the normal commercial rate, equal time shall be allocated to any political party which … is likely to be prejudicially affected by that broadcast”.

The Commission said it had based its decision to stand by its original finding on the following factors:

* the additional information from the licensee still did not demonstrate that there was consistent allocation of bonus airtime for political advertisements;

* the commission was unable to verify the accuracy of the later submission analysing the allocation of bonus “spots”, as they failed to provide source documents on which the licensee had allegedly based its breakdown of advertising spent by political parties.

Meanwhile, the commission has reminded CVM Television Limited about the need for complete advisories that explain to parents exactly what to expect from programmes with problematic material, after review of an episode of “Royal Palm Estate”, broadcast by the station on January 19.

The commission considered that while the local dramatic serial was likely to contain some problematic violence, sex and languages, these should not be extreme or graphic, given the programme’s PG rating.

The commission said it found that the January 19 episode contained a violent scene involving physical assault, but did not include any lethal weapons or explicit shots of serious wounds inflicted on a victim of a beating. Therefore, both the rating and the time of broadcast were considered appropriate.

CVM TV was, however, advised that the broadcast should have been preceded by a more detailed advisory. In particular, viewers should have been warned about the inclusion of scenes of violence that required parental guidance. Specifically, the programme included a beating scene where a female character was shown, physically restrained by a male character and then severely kicked and cuffed by another woman.

The commission has since reminded CVM Television Limited that it must comply with the Television and Sound Broadcasting Regulations and the provisions of the Children’s Code for programming. The Code requires “advisories at the start of programming [that] include a full description, in writing and as a voice over, of the rating and the nature of problematic content elements included in the programme”.