Argentina is a country that loves dichotomies. Football lovers need to divide the waters between Boca and River, while those of literature insist on rivaling Borges with Sábato. Car racing pits Ford against Chevrolet, and for nearly a century politics was divided between radicals and Peronists. It is logical then that in a situation that everyone considers necessary, such as the reform of the Broadcasting Law that has been in force since 1970, two very marked groups have been armed: that of those who defend the new proposal at all costs and that of those who defenestrate it.
The expiration of the old law, enacted during the last military dictatorship at a time when technologies and media companies were far from what they are today, is not a matter of discussion. largest business groups in the sector in the country.
Among the novelties proposed in this "Law on Audiovisual Communication Services", it is aimed at preserving 33 percent of the audiovisual space for non-profit organizations, betting on greater diversity and that institutions such as universities, unions or religious groups can "access to have a voice to say what they think", as stated by the President herself at the presentation of this project. "We must deconcentrate and democratize media ownership, favoring a real federalism that strengthens the local, with protection of our cultural assets, and defending workers and creators, making citizen access to information and other content cheaper, throughout the national territory," says the presentation of the new text.
The source of discord
The most controversial part, however, is the one that puts new limits on the property regime: the project prevents more than 30 percent of the capital that makes up a media is foreign, on the one hand (this would stop Carlos Slim's plans to launch his triple play services in Argentina), and the clause stating that "the same natural or legal person may hold or have a corporate interest in more than one license to provide a broadcasting service, with the following restrictions: in no case may it accumulate a total of more than twelve open broadcasting licenses throughout the country".
This demonopolizing effect is mainly addressed to grupo Clarín, owner of the homonymous newspaper, Canal 13, Radio Mitre and majority shareholder of the two main cable companies in the country, Cablevisión and Multicanal, which held a merger in December 2007. Even that union that left in the hands of a single business group 80 percent of the cable subscribers of the national territory, was approved by the then President, Néstor Kirchner, husband of the current president, and today it is about to be revoked, because another of the items of the law affirms that no company can exceed 35 percent of the households of subscribers to subscription broadcasting services in their customer base.
A genuine necessity, such as updating an outdated law from the legal, business and technological points of view, thus becomes a dubious political game, which allows the opposition to ensure that it is "extortion", a "threat to freedom of expression" and "a way of controlling the media". ", as stated respectively by the politicians who are on the sidewalk facing that of the ruling party, Silvana Giúdice, Elisa Carrió and Gerardo Morales. However, the bill is expected to become law over the course of the next two months.
As with Boca-River, Ford-Chevrolet, Borges-Sábato or radical-Peronists... Agreeing with many Argentines, even when the need is on the surface, can be an almost impossible mission.
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