By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Tribune Staff Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
WITH less than two weeks remaining until the 2012 Olympic Games, public concern has risen over the quality of the event’s televised coverage.
Since announcing its acquisition of the exclusive television and radio rights to air the Games, The Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas (BCB) has not made clear how its regularly scheduled programming would be affected.
Those rights were acquired from International Media Content Ltd. (IMC), the parent company of Sports Max, based in Kingston, Jamaica. Sports Max is also the sole legal entity authorised to grant licenses to BCB in this territory for live, deferred and delayed television and radio transmission with commentary.
ZNS’ General Manager Edwin Lightbourn, yesterday would only tell The Tribune that the Corporation intended to provide viewers with extensive coverage of the event. He added that the corporation had already promised advertisers exclusive coverage and they had planned to do just that.
Cable Bahamas Ltd consumers have also been left in the dark on whether certain basic cable channels would be disrupted while the Olympics continue. Those channels include NBC, ABC, and CBS.
When pressed on that matter Mr Lightbourn said ZNS has paid money for rights and that an offer had been laid on the table for Cable Bahamas to share those rights. Inquiries made to the company were not answered.
Sources close to the agreement, however, said that after months of discussions over the rights between ZNS and Cable Bahamas, both entities reached a stalemate. It is said that the rights are worth at an estimated $300,000 and were to be split between the two.
Comments
proudloudandfnm 11 years, 9 months ago
WHen will ZNS get it? No one sees them as a legit TV station, they are nothing but political cronies, amatuers at braodcasting. If we only have ZNS as an option to watch the Olympics we can be guaranteed not to see the event. With ZNS we get ONLY the following:
Poor picture quality Extrememly poor sound no editing, they simply put the commericals anywhere they want
Personally I am so glad I have satellite, they can't block them!! I'll see the picture and I'll get incredible sound.
Time for us to let ZNS fade out, obviously they have no idea how to run a TV station, they have done nothing but waste our money since inception. ZNS is nothing but a drain on our economy.
Zero improvement in 30 years!!! ABSOLUTELY ZERO!! ZNS is an embarrassment to the Bahamas.
concernedcitizen 11 years, 9 months ago
you mean w/ out satalite ,i can only watch the olympics on zns ,,our we going be doing the commentary too ,or will i get the regular commentators ???oh mercy me ,,i agree apart from 1 hour a night to do the news ,shut zns down... if yinna wan see junkanoo go on bay street or buy granny a dvd
SSS 11 years, 9 months ago
Sooooo now that the government is spending the money we are going to institute the intellectual property rights law? go figure
Islandboy242242 11 years, 9 months ago
Wow, so just so happens that I turn on Channel 10 to get the morning news...you know to find out what's going on in the world and all I get is black, along with CBS, and NBC. Overly dramatic Fox is working but suprisingly all 3 of the Networks listed above are blacked out. I can only hope this is a wierd coincidence and not that the powers that be were brave enough to black out 3 networks from now until the Olympics are completed. This ain't like an episode of Survivor you know, we only get Summer Olympics every 4 years...
MartGM 11 years, 9 months ago
I really hope it's a coincidence! Seeing that I paid to have access to these channels, blocking them for TWO WEEKS is enough to get a refund!! I suggest everyone demands they get a refund as well!!
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