Mere hours before CNC3 was due to go on the air Sep. 15, TATT sent the station a fax warning "in the strongest terms" against the broadcast, for which it said CNC3 lacked a proper licence.

CNC3 and its owner, the Trinidad Publishing Company Limited, dispute this interpretation of the law, arguing that a concession was unnecessary because it has a distribution contract with another cable company that does hold a licence.

CNC3 said that at least two other new local channels used the same strategy to broadcast their material.

"We will have no alternative but to make an application to the court for judicial review," said Marcelle Ferdinand, a lawyer representing the company.

TATT's executive director John Prince insists that CNC3 is "a broadcast provider to the general public", and therefore requires its own licence, although he says there no agenda to permanently ban the new entity.

"It was better that they were pulled in the 11th hour than the 13th hour," he said, indicating that to have allowed the broadcast would have meant that CNC3 was in violation of the Telecommunications Act.

Former executive director of the Commonwealth Journalist Association (CJA) Sunity Maharaj said that the issue raises a number of concerns, including press freedom.

"I hope all journalists in all newsrooms understand the importance of trying to understand what has happened and to explain it to the public, in order to determine whether there is a press freedom issue at stake," she said.

Attorney and newspaper columnist Dana Seetahal said the action by the regulatory body should not be allowed to go unchallenged, particularly since it was hardly a secret that the news channel was launching on Sep. 15.

"A public authority such as this ought not to use its powers to ambush media stations that fall under its scope, as far as licences, concessions and the like are concerned," she said. "At the end of the day, we are dealing here not with commodities (as in trade licences), but with freedom of the press."

"It is not the first time that this body has been accused of being unfair, and one wonders whether they have learnt from past mistakes," she added.

Wesley Gibbings, president of the umbrella media organisation, the Association of Caribbean Media Workers, described the TATT action as "a disturbingly reckless and irresponsible act by a public authority".

He recalled the uproar that greeted efforts by the TATT to create a national broadcasting code that many organisations, including the Trinidad and Tobago Publishers and Broadcasters Association, said would infringe on freedom of thought, expression and of the press.

In the end, the TATT agreed to hold further discussions with stakeholders on the broadcast code, although it says this would form part of the licence agreement with broadcasters in the future.

It also said that all existing radio stations would have to resubmit applications by Oct. 10 to be considered for concessions. So far, more than 24 radio stations have applied.

Gibbings said that the TATT "views its role in measures of prohibition and restraint and not as a facilitative mechanism to promote growth in the sector".

He warned that local media outlets that "sat on the fence on the issue of the proposed Broadcast Code should now be left with no doubt that the free press can indeed be subject to arbitrary and discriminatory official behaviour".

"In an environment in which the state is soon due to resume its role as a commercial competitor in the media arena, we also need to ask questions about the timing of new threats not only to CNC3 but to other bona fide enterprises that have been operating for some time now," he said.

"This is, however, not only an issue for media enterprises and journalists to engage. People everywhere need to join in condemning this act and demanding that the government and its agents act in support of a free press and not against it," Gibbings said.

The main opposition United National Congress says it regards the TATT's action as "an attack on the freedom of the media".

"We cannot believe that the authority was unaware of all the activities taking place in CNC3 prior to the broadcast launch," said the party, which wondered whether or not the TATT was "carrying out the dictates of the government".

The Patrick Manning administration has so far declined to comment on the issue. (END/2005)

Source: IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency