Colombia. After the approval in the first debate of the ICT modernization bill, a controversy has been unleashed by the impact that television could have if the project is approved as it is proposed, which is being processed with an urgent message from the Government.
The last to join the criticism was the journalist Yamid Amat, who at the beginning of his program Question Yamid last Monday, December 10, said: "Our program tonight is a cry of alert about the risks that public television is running in Colombia. The bill that is about to be approved in Congress, which was presented by the government on the modernization of telecommunications in Colombia, supposes, and it must be said so clearly, the withering of public television and the agony of Channel 1."
The renowned journalist explained that the project eliminates from private channels $ 128,000 million that they have to pay for the next 10 years and, in addition, extends the license to 20 more years. They will pay only 2.2% of their business stake. These benefits do not include public television and Channel 1.
He added that "It is not that Channel 1 and public television are against the benefits of private television. It is that private and public television is being seriously affected by OTT platforms, such as Netflix, Youtube, Amazon, which are competing strongly with public and private television. The problem is that on the one hand the project withers television in Colombia, both public and private. For example, the U.S. investment fund that has allowed channel 1 to survive would be pondering whether to leave Colombia because of this unequal treatment."
In the same program, the analyst Ómar Rincón intervened, who stressed that the project is well oriented but seeks to affect public television for the benefit of connectivity. In addition, the project that is called convergent does not include Amazon, Netflix, Facebook and Apple, because the business of those platforms is television content.
Ómar Rincón pointed out about the project that "it is not of convergence because it does not include OTT platforms; it has no content sovereignty, does not talk about content, does not protect the national industry in content production and leaves OTT without content regulation; and the most serious is that it is governmentalized, because the contents will be handled by the ICT Ministry."
These voices are added to many others that have questioned the project, such as regional channels. Also, several associations of the sector joined to make objections to the project in six points:
- The exploitation and use of the radio spectrum.
- The independence of the convergent regulator and the public media.
- The definition of fair compensation for operators of telecommunications services such as cable and television services.
- The definition of policies to promote audiovisual content for education and culture.
- The revision of the model of television and public media for the country.
- Prior consultation and review of the impacts of the project with social organizations
In social networks, the hashtag #latvpúblicasedefiende
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