Colombia. Just three months after starting operations and not yet completing its five members, the board of directors of the National Television Authority suffers the first casualty, after the resignation presented by Commissioner Jaime Andrés Estrada.
According to Colombian media, the letter of resignation was presented since June 22, but was barely accepted by the president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, last Friday, July 27.
Jaime Andrés Estrada joined the board of directors of the National Television Authority as a representative of the government and was the only commissioner who passed to the new entity after the liquidation of the National Television Commission.
In the liquidated CNTV, Estrada had served as director during the last year of operation and was in charge of initiating the liquidation process.
In his resignation letter he gave personal reasons, but it transpired that when he was elected commissioner of the CNTV, he had agreed to be for a period of one year, which he already fulfilled.
The outgoing commissioner had been questioned in recent months for statements given to Semana magazine, in which he indicated that he did not watch Colombian television and only followed a North American series on cable.
One of the questions about these statements was made by Omar Rincón during the inaugural panel of TecnoTelevisión, which was held in Bogotá on July 25. He pointed out that it was not possible for those in charge of regulating television in Colombia to openly declare that they did not watch television.
After the departure of Jaime Andrés Estrada, the board of directors of the National Television Authority is made up of the Minister of ICT, Diego Molano; Alfredo Sabbagh, representative of the academy; and Alexandra Falla, representative of the governors. The civil society representative has not yet been elected.
