Program Director of KREM Radio and KREM TV Manager, Mose Hyde, announced on the KREM WUB Morning Vibes Thursday that the new board of Belize Telemedia Limited (BTL) had informed the station yesterday that it would end the 2 ½-year boycott of the media house and restore KREM’s online streaming services, discontinued under the former ownership of the company, controlled by the Michael Ashcroft’s group of companies.
BTL interim director, Anwar Barrow, told Amandala that, in a meeting between BTL directors and managers Wednesday, the decision was taken that they would resume a cordial relationship with Kremandala by resuming advertising on the airwaves.
Barrow said that BTL technicians were already working to restore KREM’s presence on belizeweb.com.
A decision was also taken, said Barrow, to restore the advertising relationship with Channel 7, the television station owned by the family of BTL’s interim chairman, Nestor “Net” Vasquez.
The director told us that the intention is to “level the playing field,” but it would be left to BTL’s management to decide where ads would be placed and how frequently they would do so.
Amandala understands that the new BTL directors are in the process of reviewing the commercial agreement that BTL had with Channel 5 of Great Belize Productions.
BTL purchased the television company in June 2006, but on Monday, BTL detached Channel 5 and Great Belize Productions by divesting those assets to its large shareholders, taking along with it the Coney Drive building formerly belonging to the National Development Foundation of Belize (NDFB)—a move the new board is questioning, since the building was purchased for $3.6 million with a BTL cheque from the Social Security Board, according to credible sources.
The decision to resume the business relationship with KREM is significant. Back in August 2008, controversy broke over BTL’s decision to axe KREM and Channel 7 from broadcasting through the cable networks using the ARCOS fiber option cable system, on the claim that the companies had not signed commercial agreements with BTL. Previously, BTL provided the services free of charge.
Channel 7 had indicated that both they and KREM were punished back in 2007 with an advertising boycott for opposing the Telemedia Vesting legislation, which transferred the business of Belize Telecommunications Limited to Belize Telemedia Limited.
Around the same time, KREM claimed that BTL went a step further to block KREM’s streaming service off the Internet without notice. Last August, BTL ordered cable providers using its fiber optic system to chop both KREM and Channel 7 from the network, claiming that they had expanded the system and that both companies would have to start paying to be carried.
However, the station managers had challenged that explanation, saying that when they were chopped off the cable networks, they were never told of any need to enter into an advertising arrangement – that that explanation only came about after public controversy broke over the disconnections.
The stations held their ground citing a “must-carry” rule in law, which means that the stations must be carried on the cable networks wherever their signals can be received via open-air transmission.
(KREM is Belize’s first private radio station, in fulfillment of the call by the United Black Association for Development (UBAD) for the airwaves to be freed of government control. Before KREM came on-air, the now defunct Broadcasting Corporation of Belize had a monopoly over the airwaves. The station celebrates its 20th anniversary in November.)