“The reason Cayman27 went off the air
was because it wouldn't pay its government fees,” said our Premier,
Alden McLaughlin.

He was answering a question on today's
(Friday 19) Coronavirus Press Briefing regarding the need for
Cayman's media and the problems the media are having in trying to
stay afloat. April Cummings, now with Radio Cayman and also an
ex-employee of CITN/Cayman27 referred to the demise of the local free
over the air Television Broadcast Station as an example. The loss of
having a printed edition of The Cayman Compass was also mentioned.

The Premier was very sympathetic
towards The Cayman Compass, especially after the departure of
previous owner, David Legge. He was notably unsympathetic towards the
TV station.

Not surprisingly considering he was the
man largely responsible for its closing down, through his government
body he set up, OfReg.

He knew, as all previous governments
did, since tenders were first set out to bid for the local FREE over
the air broadcast channel, that it could not survive on local
advertising revenue alone. Even more true when one of the largest
advertising streams was through the alcoholic liquor suppliers, and
this was banned by law from appearing on the local channel. It was
allowed on all the overseas cable channels, however.

It costs a considerable more amount of
revenue to not only set up but run a broadcast channel that everyone
can receive free. The equipment alone costs five times more than
required for a cable station, and then there is the manpower. If you
are also doing local news and weather, and that was also a
requirement, that is a huge burden.

Because of that, the previous
governments, until our Premier's led one, all insisted that all
providers of the big revenue providing cable stations, because they
were charging for their product, had to provide a local free over the
channel that provided local news.

In the meantime, the McKeeva Bush led
government set up their own television channel, not free over the
air, but had to be carried by all of the cable stations as a free
addition to their packages.

Obviously it was cheaper for all the
cable channel providers to pay CITN/Cayman27 to put their station on
there packages than to provide the service themselves. In the USA and
in the UK the free over the air stations are a must carry condition.

When OfReg was set up it was obvious
from their beginning that CITN/Cayman27 was not on their agenda to
help survive.They sent out a questionnaire that included a reason why
it was not necessary to insist on a free over the air channel with
local news to be a burden thrust upon the poor cable channels. All
that was necessary was for a channel to be provided by the cable
operators where the public could send in their own productions free
of charge and see them aired.

When CITN first came on air there were
no broadcast channel government fees incurred, neither was there any
government cable fees for the first year. The government in those
early days were very keen on having a free over the air station the
whole country could enjoy. The first priority being local news and
they also specified how much and what constituted local news.

Government fees were now levied upon
Cayman27. They would receive no monies from outside cable operators.
Advertising revenues were becoming even less because of local
advertising being inserted inside some of the cable stations being
aired, plus Google Ads and the similar appearing on your computers.,
smart phones, iPads and the like.

Having started CITN/Cayman27 along with
my wife, Joan, and then being 'convinced' to sell out to the very
company we employed, I know all these details are true. I also tried
to help the last owner of Cayman27, Randy Merren, convince OfReg why
the television channel should still receive percentage of all the
cable channel revenues and to drop the government fees.

Yes. Our Premier was correct saying,
“The reason Cayman27 went off the air was because it wouldn't pay
its government fees.” If he had substituted 'couldn't' I would not
have written this Editorial.

Now you know why.

And the print media here cannot
survive. There just is not enough advertising revenue. I also know
and I learn't the hard way. iNews Cayman started out nine years ago
producing an all colour print edition.