DR Hopeton Dunn, chairman and recently appointed CEO of the Creative Production and Training Centre (CPTC) has urged government to quickly change the current regulation which prevents local cable companies from earning revenue through advertisement.

The regulation, enforced in 1998 to protect the revenue of local television stations, prescribed that cable providers earn their income largely through subscription. But cable providers have lobbied vigorously against the regulation, which two years ago led former minister of information, Colin Campbell to commission a study to examine the feasibility of their arguments.

The task force has submitted its recommendation and the ministry has been reviewing the regulation, but many of the 50 licensed cable operators feel it is taking too long for a final decision to be made. Dr Dunn’s view is that local content providers, including Creative Television (CTV), which CPTC launched three years ago, could become more financially viable and provide better service if revenue could be earned from advertising and sponsorship.

“Government’s policy prescribed that local cable companies or cable content providers like CPTC cannot properly put advertising on air and that is holding back the industry,” he said in an interview with JIS News.

“Now the media sector has been diversifying and broadcasters can get into the cable business if they want. I think it is long past time for that particular rule be changed to enable cable companies and content producers to benefit from local advertising,” he added.

An increase in CTV’s revenues would provide the means for improvements in the quality of its transmission, he said.

CTV is still the longest, continuously running, local cable station in the island and continues to offer 100 per cent Jamaican programming. Its repertoire consists of some long-running favourites, such as Hill an’ Gully Ride and Rappin’, plus close to a dozen other programmes, some of which have been packaged into DVDs and videos for local and international sale.

Only recently the training centre, along with other representatives of the local media industry, participated in the MIPCOM Media Expo in Cannes, France, where they explored the sale of local media products on the international market.

“CPTC is following up on many of the initiatives out of that visit,” Dr Dunn noted.