Region’s radio, TV execs meet in Guyana to enhance strategies : Kaieteur News

Over 80 delegates comprising senior executives of at least 30 radio and television outfits across the region will descend on Guyana over the weekend for the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU)’s 44th Annual General Assembly (AGA).

The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover or analogue switch-off, is the process in which analog television broadcasting is converted to and replaced by digital television.This primarily involves the conversion of analogue terrestrial television to digital terrestrial.

Only two media houses in Guyana –the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN) and WRHM – are part of the CBU.

According to Michael Gordon, NCN’s Chief Executive Officer (acting) and a Director of CBU, President Donald Ramotar is set to open the forum on Monday at the International Convention Centre, Liliendaal.

Also to be discussed in the AGA is the development in the digital media, including marketing and advertisements.

Radio and television broadcasting has gained more prominence recently after former President Bharrat Jagdeo, just days before leaving office in 2011, issued 11 radio licences to mainly friends and party members.

Mash calypsos banned from Guyana state radio

From Reuters.com ( edited by this blog)

By Neil Marks

GEORGETOWN | Fri Mar 1, 2013 5:36pm EST
(Reuters) - Mash Calypso lyrics decrying corruption and excess have so irked Guyana's government that new songs from the popular Caribbean music genre have been banned from state airwaves.

But the politically spicy lyrics of some recent songs have been too much for the government. Staff at the government-run National Communications Network, or NCN, received a directive this week prohibiting the broadcast of new calypso songs.

Public Works Minister Robeson Benn was so angry at one tune on NCN radio that he drove down to the station himself "to find out what the hell was going on," an official spokesman said.

One of the calypsos that offended authorities blasts the government's corruption record.

"With all de corruption dat taking place, we is de ones fe (they) blame, while dem a thief, thief, thief," the song, which won a local competition, goes in the local creole language.

Lester Charles 2013 Mash Monarch

"Calypso lyrics are spicy," said the piece's singer, Lester Charles. "Either you laugh your head off or it get you real vex."

Six-time national calypso champion Geoffrey Phillips, who goes by the stage name of "The Mighty Rebel," described the state media ban as "petty and disgusting."

"Calypsos are the spirit and passion of the people," he said. "If we are being forced to tone down, then calypso would lose its soul."

(Writing by Girish Gupta, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Peter Cooney)
Mash 2013 in photos


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