THE Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica (BCJ) said in a release that it has censured CVM TV over misleading advertising after investigating complaints from disgruntled subscribers of the Premier League.

The complaints were made in relation to subscribers not being able to watch Premier League matches on the CSport app in Jamaica, and while the BCJ said it does not have jurisdiction over CSport because it is Internet-based, it said CVM TV, which is owned by VertiCast Media Group, and also owns CSport, facilitated misleading advertisements that matches would be broadcast when they were not.

“The main point the Commission was pointing to [is] the obligation that broadcasters not carry misleading advertising, matters that they know to be wholly or partly not to be so, and in this case the relationship between VertiCast and CVM TV and the related online companies and the way the Premier League has been treated. The Commission came to the conclusion that it was reasonable for CVM to have known at some point when it was running ads about the Premier League that the games were not being delivered as advertised. That is essentially the concern that the Commission had about CVM’s role in the matter,” Cordel Green, executive director of the BCJ, told the Jamaica Observer in an interview following the release.

“In this case, the Commission required CVM Television to air a number of apologies at prescribed times,” Green added. He did not quantify how many apologies CVM TV must make and for how long, but said “it’s standard”.

It said the misleading advertising stemmed from CVM TV airing promotional material for access to live broadcasts of Premier League matches on CSport.tv and the CSport app (owned by VertiCast, CVM’s majority shareholder). One of the promos twinned the “CVM” and “
CSport” logos implying that both entities are related and involved in the Premier League offering. One other promo involved a call to action — “Sign up now at
CSport.tv or download the CSport app to catch all the action.”

Further charges were made that sports enthusiasts who were motivated by the advertisements reasonably expected to see the Premier League games over the entire season.

“However, this did not materialise as evidenced by emails sent to subscribers on February 17 and 24, 2024, apologising for “the ongoing Premier League broadcast disruptions…” and “the ongoing disruptions in the Premier League broadcast…”, respectively,” the BCJ release pointed out.

It said given the circumstances of their shared ownership and close relations, CVM TV was aware that CSport was failing to deliver live games as advertised, yet the station aired promotional offerings of CSport for access to Premier League matches.

The BCJ made no specific determinations in relation to CSport.tv or the CSport app as broadcasting laws do not apply directly to online services.

But, commenting on the matter, Green said, “The situation requires a remedy such as a provision in the regulations to allow for even limited review of online content, in circumstances where it is reasonable for the public to make no distinction between over-the-air and affiliated online services.”

“In a more general sense though, it has made the observation that this situation is untenable because increasingly in a digital environment where content flows freely across platforms and devices, people don’t really make distinctions any more in a siloed way. As long as content is screened, they go where there is content, and it is certainly not satisfactory for someone who is subscribing, especially if they are subscribing to a high-valued sporting event like the Premier League that is somehow affiliated with a licensed entity in Jamaica, to be told pretty much that you can complain to them and that’s the end of the matter. We are of the view that something needs to be done.”

He said the BCJ has written to minister with responsibility for information Robert Morgan about the matter.

“Nobody is to be circumscribed from getting the exclusive rights to content, but there is not just the commercial issue of who can purchase what, but there is a deeper matter in the public’s interest and their right to access certain content,” he added as he pointed out that in some countries, such content is given special treatment, calling for something similar to be enacted in Jamaica.

But Green said he is not asking for a carte blanche introduction of broadcasting regulation in all facets of the Internet or all facets of what a broadcaster does online.

“It is what would be reasonable, practicable and justifiable in a free and democratic society and one that is operating and applying sensible digital age provisions to respond to public concerns,” he said.

“I know that for a lot of people who subscribed to CSport, they are satisfied and are happy that the Broadcasting Commission responded to their complaints, but I don’t believe that even the idea that they are to be refunded ameliorates the situation, because for many people it’s the experience, it’s not so much the money, and I think that is where the angst is, that people have not been able to experience the games as they reasonably expected. And we are very much supportive of entities such as VertiCast and local broadcasters when they make these events available to the Jamaican people, but care must always be taken to ensure that there is reliability in what the public expects, because the risk in these circumstances is not just the reputation of a particular broadcaster or how the public would view reliability of what they are told they would get from paid platforms. The downside of it is what is more insidious is that people then go searching to access content on illegal platforms, and that is not good for anybody.

“We are not of the view that there is anything deliberate on the part of VertiCast. I am sure this is not what they have set out to do, but it is a very serious matter because it goes beyond their commercial concerns and goes to a deeper question about the content ecosystem, so the Commission takes these matters seriously,” Green said.

The BCJ is the regulatory body with oversight of radio, television, and cable services in Jamaica. It is currently engaged with the information division in the Office of the Prime Minister on a range of matters to modernise the media sector. These include Digital Television Switch-Over, branded as “Next Gen TV”; implementing ATSC 3.0, the world’s most advanced television transmission standard; Digital, Media and Information Literacy as a tool for dealing with disinformation and misinformation in the age of generative artificial intelligence; a New Content Code to replace the 2003 Children’s Code for Programming, and the Electronic Media and Content Policy which seeks to update the legal and regulatory framework for content and media regulation.