The board of the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas (BCB) is proposing that the more than 70,000 cable television subscribers in The Bahamas be charged an additional $6 per month to help fund the cash strapped state-owned ZNS Bahamas entity, when it transitions into a public broadcast service in the coming months.<\/p>\n
If the proposed measure is approved, it will generate at least $4.2 million for the BCB on an annual basis, according to a copy of the proposal exclusively obtained by The Nassau Guardian.<\/p>\n
It is understood that the proposal was presented yesterday to Cabinet by BCB executive chairman Michael Moss.<\/p>\n
“Creating a new funding system tied to specific legislated sources of revenue will reinforce ZNS’ autonomy as a public service broadcaster and underpin its new corporate culture,” said the proposal. “In the (United Kingdom), for example, the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is funded mostly by a household tax (currently \u00a3140 a year) on receiving sets. Private broadcasters pay seven percent of their qualifying revenue to operate.”<\/p>\n
The government has subsidized ZNS for amounts ranging from $8 million to $11 million over the past several years, something it is no longer prepared to do.<\/p>\n
ZNS executives have said it actually costs about $15 million per year to run the corporation.<\/p>\n
In this current budget, the government slashed ZNS’ budget in half and allocated $4.25 million for the corporation.<\/p>\n
Cable customers are not the only people who will have to help foot the bill for ZNS if its board gets its way.<\/p>\n
The proposal calls for an additional fee of $50 on all satellite dishes imported into the country.<\/p>\n
In addition to that, satellite TV subscribers would be asked to pay $20 per year to fund ZNS, a move which if approved, the board believes will generate $500,000 per year.<\/p>\n
The nation’s private broadcasters will also be asked to help pay for ZNS.<\/p>\n
The proposal calls for a percentage of the license fees that private broadcasters pay to the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) on an annual basis to be diverted to ZNS’ budget.<\/p>\n
If approved, the proposal predicts that the measure will generate at least $2 million per year for ZNS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cable Bahamas customers are not the only people who will have to help foot the bill for money-losing ZNS if its board gets its way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-telecommunications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}