Changing the channel

The closure of the company, which is to be effective September 30, comes as the State also looks to cut staff at the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG). The plight of all of these workers is affected by the fact that media companies in the private sector are also retrenching.

GISL was born out of the ashes of NCC, The Information Channel and AVM. Radio and television broadcast veterans Bobby Thomas, Bryan Waller, and brothers Arnold and Dale Kolasingh set up Audio Visual Media (AVM) Caribbean Ltd, a production house that focussed on producing commercials and local current affairs programmes.

In 1991, AVM Caribbean Ltd became AVM Television, the second privately owned broadcast station. AVM was best known for its American-based Public Service Announcement commercials and local programming such as Good Morning T&T, The Midday Show, Head Start, On Track, Caribbean Sports Digest, Words, Books & Letters, Cross Country, Painting for Pleasure and Distance Learning TV.

AVM was a good effort in seeking to produce local content. When it closed, there was an explosion of media and government decided to hold onto it, resuscitate part of it and use that as the government information service. GISL was used principally to promote and disseminate government information. It was a boring mandate, but nonetheless the entity had a good archive of local television footage that provided good fodder for nostalgia.

Yet, difficult economic times meant there was some pressure to merge GISL with Trinidad and Tobago Television, thereby rationalising resources. That merger, however, never came to pass.

The problem has always been a lack of sustained focus and policy.

If the objective is to promote local television production, the State cannot allow commercial imperatives to dictate content. Nor should it let State resources be used for private political gain.

The vision should be one of a national television station that is the transmitter of high-quality local content. Such a station cannot be left on its own devices to compete with other commercial ventures. It must draw upon the substantial resources which are within reach of the government. For example, archives.

A big question now is what will become of the valuable TTT archives? There have been reports of material rotting in a container at an industrial compound in Port-of- Spain. Those materials represent a sizable proportion of our television heritage. That heritage is going to waste as we speak.

Not all forms of State ownership of television have been wasteful.

The Parliament Channel is an excellent example of what can be achieved. It features well-produced local documentaries although oriented to the work of the Parliament and those who serve and served in it. That has only been possible with subsidies. September 30 will be a sad day for the employees of GISL and for television history.

However, lessons can be learned from the GISL experience. The main one is that State television stations should be used to serve the public interest: that means promotion of local culture, not political objectives. Such an endeavour is only possible with substantial government investment and bold, high quality local content. This is also more likely in the context of a coherent national policy on the arts.

For now, we hail the contribution of GISL which, in its various incarnations, played its part in our democracy by covering Parliament and commissions of inquiry, Carnival and the arts. Though the channel is being changed, perhaps a similar entity, in the right conditions, can one day take its place.