THE Broadcasting Commission has proposed that television stations, cable companies and radio stations be fined for breaches of their licences, saying the penalties now in place have not been serving as a deterrent.

Media owners who breach the broadcasting regulations are reprimanded by the commission and then asked to issue a public apology, but Cordel Green, executive director of the Broadcasting Commission, does not believe this is enough to prevent the many breaches being reported.

Speaking at a panel discussion which formed part of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s Early Childhood Education Conference at the Renaissance Jamaica Grande Resort in Ocho Rios last week, Green said the proposal to begin fining broadcasters was one of the issues to be discussed when the commission hosts a meeting with media owners next month.

“The fact is that the commission is concerned that the sanctions that exist now are not effective to deal with the range of challenges we are facing in this new dispensation with an explosion of media,” Green later told the Observer.

Green said the commission is now actively considering making recommendations that the regulations be changed.

“The commission is charged with the responsibility to change the regulations, but after consultation with the honourable minister of information, the commission is now deliberating on that matter and I am certain there is going to be some provision in the overall regulations for the imposition of fines as a means of sanctions,” he said.

But while acknowledging that more needs to be done to safeguard against the spread of illicit material over the media, and especially the lyrical contents of songs being played on local radio stations and aired on music videos on television, Green said the job will not be an easy task.

“It’s very difficult. There is an explosion, not just in Jamaica, but in the world. We are now contending with satellite television, satellite radio, and then you have the Internet, which we haven’t even started to grapple with, so it’s going to be challenging,” he said.

“What is clear is that we can’t continue in the old way. We won’t be able to deal with the challenges and as well as the opportunities that arise in this new era, simply by relying on the old methodologies for regulating or operating as a regulator,” Green added.

He said the media, parents and educators needed to collaborate in an effort to tackle the problem. The effort, he said, should include a greater emphasis on self-regulation by the media which he said included the establishment of standards and adhering to them.

At the same time, he said, media owners have been called in, based on current trends in radio wherein ‘beeps’ are used in attempts to obscure indecent and obscene messages on reggae records, but which he said have been ineffective.

“Attempts to obscure what is indecent and obscene are in many instances ineffective because messages remain that we are concerned about and the commission therefore has decided to engage directly with the owners of the media houses to discuss this matter in a closed-door, face-to-face, sit-down session.”

He said, too, that the Broadcasting Commission has been involved in the training of media personnel in an attempt to achieve improvements, even though this does not form part of the commission’s mandate.

Last year, the commission collaborated with the Independent Television Commission in the United Kingdom to stage workshops for media workers and hopes to repeat the act this year.