Thursday, January 04, 2007

On Media Ministry Announcement

There seems to have been a recent announcement by the media ministry regarding the licenses issued for Radio and Television stations in Sri Lanka. Accordingly it states that all those who have been issued licenses should commence operations of their broadcasting facility within 45 days. We welcome this decision of the Media Ministry since those who have been issued with the license should put their license to good use by entertaining the public. In addition the curbing of the sale of television and radio licenses acquired by one to another is also welcome since it would mean that people who want to earn a fast buck by selling the license at a much higher price will refrain from doing so.

However there was a good point raised by another blog whether this could pose any threat to CBNsat or to Comet Cable. Refer Link

http://lankamediaoutlook.blogspot.com/2007/01/
start-all-new-tv-radio-within-45-days.html

We believe that this is not so since Dialog did not buy the cable television license from Asset Media and use it to operate CBNsat. What Dialog did was buy Asset Media who were the owners of the license and then used it to operate CBNsat so the license was not the one that was sold, it was the whole company that was sold.

In the case of Comet Cable if the Southern Development Authority (SDA) keeps its share in Comet Cable and the other partner sells their share to some other party then there will not be any issue. However if the SDA sells it share then there could be a problem because the license it owned by the SDA.

We believe that if a license is sold to some other party it is not good, however we believe that if the entire company that holds the license is bought by some other then it will be not a good business practice to make it a requirement for the new owners to acquire the licenses again.

We however are of the view that this was targeted at those who sell their licenses for money and not on the transfer of ownership of the company that holds the license.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bull Shit,This Lanka Media guy is running on rumors and there is no threat whatsoever on CBNsat,Furthermore the orginal owner of asset media (Mr.Nihal Senevirathne Epa) is still on the board and the supreme court issued a order that CBNsat should not be discriminated any more.

If the so called huluballas,ganegalas,baluwardenas resort to their old tactics,They are asking for trouble from the Malaysian government.