Ever since the dismantling of the government run BCB in 1999, there's been a secret in the radio industry: every major radio station, and some very non-major, receive a monthly subsidy from government. That's right, Love FM, Krem Radio, FM 2000, the Beat, Power Mix in Dangriga and Radio Bahia in Corozal have all been direct recipient of monthly subsidies that as of today costs the government just about $60,000 a month, $720,000 a year. But, with the new austerity, "things done changed", and as of November 1st, those lavish subsidies are no more.
Vaughan Gill, the media point man in the Office of the Prime Minister today confirmed that GOB has terminated its contracts with these radio stations. He explains that from now on they will be contracted to work on a per job basis. The new deal is that the stations will be paid to air ads and announcements from time to time. They will have the additional incentive of developing awareness and public information campaigns and programming to attract government's advertising dollar.
It might sound like two different ways to skin the same cat, but Gill assured us that due to an overall cutback in government spending, the budget has been significantly cut so those radio stations can hardly expect to fully recoup what will be significant losses in revenue. How significant? Well we don't have the numbers and Gill would not let them off, but we do know for example that Love FM's subsidy was fixed at a figure upwards of $15,000 every month.
But what ended up as crass government payola started far more benignly. When the contracts came into effect secretly in 1999, first with Love FM, government hoped to ensure that it could maintain the public benefits deriving from a national radio signal, and maintain programming for which there would be no private incentive, including the airing of public notices, government public relations programs, and more importantly hurricane bulletins, and National Assembly meetings.
But, while that was the official veneer, it was also meant to purchase political favor and keep the radio stations compromised and always financially, if not morally, indebted to the government. But now it's an indulgence that government can no longer afford, and one that critics argue never really worked anyway because of the private media's free wheeling ways.
The interesting thing is that this ever widening campaign of appeasement which spread across the radio dial, ended up costing the government twice the $380,000 it spent on the BCB in its final year.