Colombia. Undoubtedly, the arrival of David Luna to the Ministry of ICT changed the face of the businessmen dedicated to providing the closed television service in Colombia, because in what he has been Minister he has been characterized by attending to the various concerns of the guild, has met periodically with its representatives and presents advances in the face of the concerns that are expressed to him.
Last Tuesday, October 27, he attended the meeting scheduled by Asotic (Association of Operators of Information and Communications Technologies of Colombia) at the facilities of RTVC (Radio Television of Colombia), where he made it clear that television continues to be a very important means of communication and that the private company has fulfilled obligations that the State has not been able to fulfill. He considers it important to be with the guilds to make decisions on specific issues that hurt the guild.
In his first meeting with the Board of Directors of Asotic, important aspects such as:
- Meeting with international programmers in order to discuss the issues that most afflict operators, such as foreign language contracts, collection in dollars, mandatory packaging, predatory and discriminatory tariffs.
- Review of the formula used for the payment of compensation and screen fee.
- Participation of the unions in the public policy project of the audiovisual sector.
- Review of the information reporting system to the control bodies.
For this second meeting, not only the Board of Directors of the association arrived, but several of its affiliates from various regions of the country, also attended by the Director of the ANTV (National Television Authority), Ángela María Mora Soto, to respond to the concerns seen in the first meeting (held on September 10). On each subject, a timely response was given and the following should be highlighted:
Regarding the international programmers, on September 15 the ANTV, the MinTIC and representatives of these companies met, in this meeting the concerns presented by Asotic were directly expressed and on them their solutions are initiated with strict follow-up by the Ministry.
Faced with the compensation model, minTIC and ANTV projected a market study as a first measure, this study begins the first week of January 2016 and its objective will be to establish extensively and comprehensively the service of closed television analyzing issues such as: advertising, compensation value, value extensions of subscription television concessions, own programming quota and Must Carry.
For the purposes of participation of the unions within the legislative reforms, their representatives were summoned to a working session on November 12 and 13 of this year.
Finally, to review the control and surveillance system on the subject of information reporting, the Minister asked the ANTV to establish as soon as possible an efficient measure to unify reports in a single channel of information reception.
With this panorama, very encouraging indeed for subscription television, I have only one concern, will the Minister have the same disposition with the operators that are within the community television model? Because talking to more visible representatives in these organizations, to date they have not received them and lobby through other ministries to give them space and similar treatment, is it possible for the Minister to ignore this unique television model in the world? I'll have to ask you directly and then tell you.
Text written for TVyVideo+Radio by engineer Luis Pinto, ICT consultant.
