Category: CNMG

A review of T&T's first televised political debate

July 23, 2010 by Edmund Gall

I've just witnessed T&T's first national political debate prior to an election, televised live on CNMG's C TV (find the recorded video here).  Here are my initial views.

First, I must, like others I've spoken with via facebook during the show, commend the T&T Debates Commission (TTDC) for facilitating the event, CNMG's C TV for broadcasting it over-the-air in T&T and over the Internet via their website (for free - take note Guardian Media Group), and the PNM and People's Partnership for agreeing to participate in this historic event. While critical analysis will follow in the hours and days ahead, constructive or otherwise, I am very grateful to all parties for taking such an important step to advance our political culture.

Here are some of the things I thought worked well.  The TTDC published the debate format, and rules and guidelines for the participants, moderator, questioners and studio audience on their website so the public could assess beforehand.  The TTDC also recognised (somewhat) the worth of social media in today's public relations strategies and created its own facebook page (as did C TV with its own pages for C News Live and First Up, their flagship programmes). {Read more}

More On Carnival, CNMG, Copyright and Gayelle

February 17, 2010 by Taran Rampersad

When Edmund Gall first wrote about the de facto monopolization of Carnival broadcast rights in Trinidad and Tobago (read it!), he mentioned friend Mark Lyndersay's point that it was more about control than optimization. When I wrote about the issue last night, I took the same tack.

Is it the right tack? Some may not think so. Lets consider a parallel. Let us consider broadcast rights in sports.

In sports, media companies are granted rights to broadcast and rebroadcast a sporting event - be it the Olympics, the Super Bowl, cricket, tennis, etc. A key difference between carnival and sport is that sports broadcasts are typically of people getting paid to move a ball from one place to another. This is not to diminish their ability with balls - it is in fact because they are so good with moving balls around that they get paid. Carnival, on the other hand, has people who have paid to play mas (for foreigners, that means dancing and prancing in costumes some deem artistic).

Thus, the very basis of the parallel is skewed: Sports broadcasts are of people who are typically paid to play with balls. Carnival broadcasts are typically of people who paid to play themselves. The balls joke was too easy. {Read more}

Carnival, CNMG, Copyright and Gayelle

February 17, 2010 by Taran Rampersad

I would just like to point out that I'm supporting Gayelle here in Trinidad, that someone suing for coverage of what is labeled a cultural event is reprehensible.

I'd like to see everyone who was pictured or videoed under CNMG's copyright say that they signed a document stating that CNMG could exclusively display their images and videos for profit. Let me get this straight: people pay to play in bands, then the state owned enterprise CNMG takes the images of the people who spent money and profits from them?

Copyright. The government has taken a state owned corporation and made it in charge of commercial interests of Carnival - that's basically excising private enterprise and putting it in the hands of government. So the content that is owned by the State Owned Enterprise would belong to the government of Trinidad and Tobago which is supposed to be holding it in trust of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. What a brilliant way for the government to make money and assure more control of media in Trinidad and Tobago. A stupid tax with the capacity for censorship through a state run enterprise.

Hitler would be so proud! Not only getting the propaganda machine up but having the people subsidize it with their own spending on costumes, etc. {Read more}

The CNMG experience: How to crash T&T's Carnival Big Truck

February 16, 2010 by Edmund Gall

A few weeks ago, the T&T government decided to award sole rights to distribute coverage of major Carnival 2010 events to its own media house: the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG).  On the face of it, this seemed sensible: award management of the distribution to a trusted partner.  However, though CNMG has been streaming its own programmes on the Internet for over a year at www.ctntworld.com, it proved to be completely unable to handle streaming of T&T Carnival.

First, we have to question whether the decision to manage radio, video and Internet coverage of Carnival 2010 was borne out of a wish by the government, through its Ministry of Culture, to really make the most of this tremendous marketing opportunity.  According to local photojournalist, Mark Lyndersay, it appears that the motivation was control rather than optimisation: see his extremely enlightening BitDepth article on the matter.

Second, the expected first step for CNMG would be re-licensing of other providers to share in the distribution of the events for a fee.  It did this with the radio feeds, since Internet users can listen to coverage of events via non-CNMG stations.  However, CNMG decided not to share Internet streaming with other distributors, as described in this When Steel Talks (WST) article on the exclusion of T&T culture media house WACK.  Given government's history of planned failure, folks involved in culture rightly became worried by this imposed single point of failure for video coverage. {Read more}