Jamaica’s Broadcasting Commission recently convened its 2010 Regional Forum on Policy and Regulation in the electronic media sector. From all indications the forum was a tremendous success with a large number of local media personalities and policy makers, as well as representatives from sister Caribbean islands, the general public and online visitors participating. The BCJ is justifiably proud of the role it has played in opening up the electronic media sector to more players. There are 26 broadcast radio licensees; three islandwide broadcast TV stations and 41 subscriber television operators across the island. In 2009 alone, four subscriber television operators and four commercial broadcast radio operators received licences to provide cable television and radio service respectively.

With liberalisation of electronic media and the explosion of new entrants, the regulatory challenges for the BCJ have multiplied. Segments of the media are more interested in earning a buck (and equally in passing it), than in maintaining the essential virtues of honesty, integrity and truth. It is a fact that with the increase in competition, reduction in margins, and consequently the increasing reliance on outsourcing as a means of converting fixed to variable overheads, some electronic media enterprises find themselves held to ransom by “mercenaries” who can account for up to 30 per cent of a station’s revenue. The mercenaries who come in various forms – independent talk-show hosts, freelance journalists, contract announcers, itinerant commentators and moonlighting disc jockeys – are gaining in power. Unschooled in journalism and indifferent to the damage, the media can wreak havoc on a vulnerable society that cannot be easily restrained or made to conform to any standard.

The slippage in standards is evident in the age-old practice of payola. Payola is pay for play, that is, payment of cash or giving of gifts for airplay. The practice is commonplace on radio, cable and in TV airing of music videos locally. This brazen form of bribery in media presentation of material is like the use of performance-enhancing steroids in sports. Many talents and budding careers fail to get the exposure they deserve; are suppressed or cut short because of payola.

Mr Don McDowell who operates his own recording studio thinks the problem is getting worse. The widespread access to low-cost digital recording equipment, he says, has spawned tremendous growth in the number of music recording studios resulting in an ever-expanding number of new artistes and new releases. The supply and demand for airplay has effectively worsened the payola situation, causing some media personalities to be more overt in their demands.

The demands range from asking for a specific sum for a fixed number of plays plus “pull-ups”, that is, several replays along with hype talk, to the wicked practice of asking for a share in the artiste’s publishing, thus guaranteeing the artiste a continuous stream of income from copyright and royalties.

In the United States this type of rapacious practice is a federal crime. The Broadcasting Commission believes that payola is best dealt with either in the criminal law or through internal station management. Along with the passage of legislation with stiff penalties and imprisonment for both parties to the transaction, Mr Don McDowell is recommending broadening the role of the BCJ to include monitoring and prosecuting infringements of the law; licensing and regulating on-air personalities, and setting limits on the number of times a song or an artiste can be played in a specified period of time. He is calling on the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association along with the Jamaica Federation of Musicians (JFM) and Jamaica Association of Vintage Artistes to make stamping out the practice of payola a priority in their lobbying efforts, and on Minister Babsy Grange to fulfil the promise she made to the music industry in 2008 to put a stop to the evil payola system.

This and other challenges faced by local media are like Mount Everest. The highly professional display by the BCJ in convening the 2010 Regional Forum on Policy and Regulation in the Electronic Media Sector inspires confidence that the problems can be successfully tackled and overcome. In his own assessment of the event BCJ chairman, Dr Hopeton Dunn made the following statement. “We had a very successful forum. It gave us an opportunity to share ideas about where the regional industry should be going and many ideas were put on the table that are now to be acted upon in a way that is harmonised. That was one of the key goals of the meeting. Regional broadcasters and regulators now have a stronger foundation on which to pursue policy responses and activities”.

The slippage in editorial integrity, programme consistency and quality in both the electronic and print media can get worse, if resolute action is not taken. Attorney-at-law Frank Phipps is reported to have compared parliamentary order to a woman’s bikini in the following way. “What it reveals is interesting, what it conceals is vital”. When it comes to the media, if those vital ingredients are honesty, integrity, truth and decency, then it’s time to start worrying. The Broadcasting Commission by most accounts is doing a marvellous job. It must keep up its vigilance if we are not to end up with a footloose, fancy-free media.

hmorgan@cwjamaica.com