Troubled times for regional broadcaster CMC

By VonDez Phipps
Reporter-SKNVibes.com

CMC Director

A decision to keep the company in operation was made on December 31 but officials for the struggling CMC still foresee a troubling future if the countries it services do not support the regional media house with the necessary remittances.

In September 2008, the multi-media broadcast network had announced that under the pressures of increasing costs and the burden of solely financing the channel, it has accumulated millions of dollars in obligations and has consequently made significant cut-backs in its operations.

The Board subsequently presented a paper to the Bureau of Heads of Government of CARICOM seeking financial support for sustaining CMC.

During the meeting, the CARICOM Secretariat agreed to “lead an initiative to seek US $50,000 from each member government as bridge financing for CMC's operations until end of first quarter of 2009”.

~~Adz:Right~~However, in an exclusive interview with SKNVibes yesterday (Jan. 15), CMC Director Patrick Cozier informed that most of the remittances have not yet materialized as many of the countries have not pledged their support while only a few have actually sent remittances.

“Progress has been very slow as we are still awaiting remittances from the various countries. We have had a very positive response from the Barbados government and Suriname has already sent its remittances, but we are still waiting on responses from the others.

“We are making every effort to get even further assistance; we sent out letters to Caribbean Heads to get their support in this effort. At the meeting in Antigua, there were only three [countries] that indicated their support and so we wrote to the Secretariat with hope that it would encourage the others to pledge their financial support.”

“If the funding comes through as we hope, then we would be provided with sufficient finances to carry us through to the end of the first quarter. We have submitted to the Heads of Government [of the region] a paper which outlines our long-term solution to keep us [CMC] fully functioning.

As we encourage the countries to send their remittances, we hope that some of the issues in our long-term sustainability plan would be addressed and adopted.”

Cozier informed that the regional multi-media organization will capitalize on negotiations with interested parties in the upcoming weeks, adding that CMC seeks to ensure regional integration as the Caribbean enters the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

CMC was formed in 2000 by the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) and the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) and has broadcasted news through daily television, radio and print news services across the region.