THE Broadcast Commission of Jamaica (BCJ) has compiled a list of 17 cable operators that haven’t paid any portion of the $132 million in regulatory fees this fiscal year, representing 40 per cent of an industry hurt by recession.

It meant that more cable operators were non-compliant than compliant according to the BCJ Monitoring and Compliance Report released last week for the quarter ending June 2010.

In fact, the number of non-compliant operators has grown over three months from 30 per cent in the March 2010 quarter to the current 40 per cent in the June 2010 quarter.

Contrastingly, the fully compliant 40 per cent of cable operators included Central Communication Services, Flow, Cornwall Communications, Direct Cable, General Satellite Network, Intech Communications, Jamaica Cablevision, Linscom Network, Logic One, Mars Cable Vision, Modern Re-Broadcast, Santastic Cable Systems, Silly Video, Summit Satellite Systems, Tru Star Cable Television Network and Telstar Cable.

The remaining 20 per cent were only partially compliant.

Cable or Subscriber TV operators are required to pay an annual licence fee of five per cent of their gross subscription income slated to increase to $132 million this fiscal year. Sanctions for non-compliance can range from a 20 per cent penalty for late payment to recommendations for licence suspension.

Yesterday when contacted, the BCJ said that not much had changed since it revealed these problems in June in an Observer article.

The BCJ earlier told the Observer that it conducted a series of visits with licensees across the island and found that the global economic recession was impacting revenues with indications of a real decline of between 15-45 per cent. The main problems were a high number of customers kept in arrears but also a deficiency in management.