Dunn

Many people who strongly support the measures to help clean up the airwaves and tackle payola have also commented that it took too long to be addressed in the decisive and extensive manner now being employed. To these citizens we say, yes, we hear you loud and clear, and we consider your comments both a constructive criticism and a declaration of the strongest possible support going forward.

The reality is that the commission has been at work for many years and months trying to persuade the worst-offending licensees, using such measures as one-off apologies, and other regulatory actions, that sometimes led to the dismissal of a few on-air offenders. Some readers will recall that, less than a year ago, the commission made a strong recommendation to the Government for the suspension of the licence of one blatant transgressor.

The regulatory directives now being employed have sent a firm and clear message uniformly across the landscape: Violations of the broadcasting regulations will not be tole-rated and will attract serious consequences. These regulatory actions have had more far-reaching effects than the previous approaches, but the range of measures available to us is still not adequate and we await approval of new measures, including financial sanctions.

volunteer media monitors

The details of these and other proposed regulatory reforms are currently before Government, including for the repeal and rewriting of the entire Broadcasting and Radio Re-Diffusion Act. But in the meantime, we will use the powers currently provided under the act.

The commission has maintained that no regulatory body can operate successfully by simply deploying its legal powers, without stakeholder consultations and active public support. Although it took some time, we are grateful that some progress in these respects has been made in our sector. We do not take this for granted and know that the real mea-sure of our success is the extent that we are able to monitor and maintain strong vigilance against a return to old practices.

Just last week, I addressed the latest batch of close to 50 volunteer media monitors during a training session in Kingston. Similar sessions will be held in central and western Jamaica, as we step up the necessary islandwide infrastructure to ensure, with the assistance of the public, that we never return to the old state of affairs on broadcast media.

This problem will not recede easily and it is not a matter just for broadcasting regulation, but for wider public action. Our rejection of pay-for-play corruption will be maintained, and new measures relating to the reinstatement of playlists and appointment of programme managers have already been recommended for enactment and will be enforced.

regulatory action

Overall, it would be fair to say that the majority of broadcast managers, including those in the Media Association of Jamaica, have accepted and supported the strong regulatory action taken in the clamping down of the rampant and outrageous content and corrupt practices that had overtaken parts of the airwaves. The commission will continue to be resolute in enforcement of the regulations and directives, and already, we have had to sternly warn executives of one of the broadcast media conglomerates about seeking to 'test' the regulators and to some degree, the country, in some of its radio output.

But the responses to the commission did not only come from those in support of the commission's actions. It also came in the form of opponents offering reasoned public arguments that legitimately sought to challenge the actions of a public institution that must be open to criticism. There were also legal and physical threats to the commission and its leaders, vulgar name-calling and the ill-informed ascribing of class-related motives for our actions. The genuinely concerned citizens and public commentators who did not agree with the commission's actions have not been ignored, particularly those who cautioned care and balance in how issues of freedom of expression are handled. They can be assured that those concerns are not lost on the commission. Its members are first and foremost Jamaican citizens who value our freedoms and enjoy our culture. The commission remains resolute, however, and unequivocal, in insisting that responsibility must at all times accompany the exercise of our freedoms.

unsuitable in the extreme

Even the most vociferous among the cri-tics have conceded that a lot of what was passing for broadcast content was unsuitable, sometimes in the extreme, for airplay and have even accepted that some action was warranted. The trouble is that many of these persons typically do not detain themselves on what, realistically, is to be done, or indeed what had been done in the past to try to redress the situation. The public appears to be insisting that the commission does not just give in or cater to those who would speak the loudest or to the small minority who would seek to capture the airwaves to purvey their own narrow brand of 'freedom'.

It bears reiterating here that the Broadcasting Commission does not regulate music in buses or on any other form of public transportation or in personal media. It is not, as some people believe, responsible for regulating sound systems or music operators that keep the volume up into the wee hours of the morning in both uptown and downtown residential neighbourhoods. Those are the responsibilities of other public authorities. But the recent regulatory actions of the commission, which followed months of industry consultation, clearly highlight the need for carefully managed but resolute and sustained actions in these public spheres as well.

The once-revered concepts of 'broadcast quality' and 'fit for airplay' must once again be re-instated as internally defined standards of electronic media output in Jamaica.

Dr Hopeton Dunn is chairman of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica.