CBA Regional Conference: Barbados - 2005
Management Problems and Solutions in the Caribbean: The Regional Perspective
by Patrick Cozier (Secretary-General, Caribbean Broadcasting Union)
In a world ever changing with the new and emerging technologies, the entry of new media, digital transitioning and new trade protocols, the task of managing today’s media system is becoming increasingly complex and challenging.
• One of the most noticeable realities is that many if not most of the better trained people no longer work within the industry.
This represents a difficult challenge to management as it relates to how much resources it should apply to training and how does it retain the services of these trained resources, so that they can withstand the invitations from advertising agencies, corporate communication departments, and even the political sectors.
The answer appears quite simply to be, to invest in their training and then improve their pay. The realities however are not that simple, since the economics of Caribbean broadcasting is such that most of the stations are not making money and hence not really able to achieve this goal.
If however the standards and qualities of journalism are to be sustainably lifted, this investment will be necessary.
• Then there is the issue of balancing the economics of public service broadcasting against the need to maximize shareholders returns. Today’s reality is that private sector businesses are constantly looking for ways to improve their bottom line returns to investors, while state owned broadcasters are being told by their Governments that they must be self supporting and off of any Government subsidies.
In developing countries, the role of public service broadcasting is obvious and necessary but the production of local programming content is also very expensive. Sadly the region does not have the donor infrastructure or donor culture to provide funding for public service broadcasting in the same way as the BBC is provided for by the T.V. head tax and in the USA, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is provided for from difference sources. In these regards we are looking at billions of dollars annually in support. The solution must therefore be in the creation of a Program or Content Development Fund to greatly assist this purpose. Just by the way, the CBU has for the last two (2) years, placed a paper on this exact same topic, before the Minister of information in CARICOM. We hoped that this will someday bear fruit.
The challenge is therefore to be able to significantly and sustainably increase local/regional content production, to enable a strong and credible alternative view option.
However production of local content can incur costs of 10 x 20 times what it takes to purchase overseas programming and all at the same revenue rate.
• Perhaps, the fastest of all change is taken place in the area of new and emerging technologies. With the advent of the internet, broadcasters and broadcast management have had to make some adjustments in their traditional operating models. In the final analysis, the internet is largely a capacity medium seeking to utilize content, for its throughput. Since broadcasters have control over significant amounts of content, then broadcaster can use this advantage to form a complimentary and not a competitive relationship with this new medium.
The recent development of web blogging, is also a challenge to the broadcasters, as this new form of electronic reportage and interactive participation would well redefine the editorial models of today’s traditional media.
The changing technologies also create additional challenges to management in balancing leading edge competitiveness with financial affordability. It becomes impossible for media stations in the small, developing world to keep up with the pace of change since it is simply not affordable. Management must therefore settle for an optimum choice strategy, obtaining the best that they can within their limited resources.
The changing technologies also carry with them, special requirements for training and continuous upskilling in order to keep up to date with technology trends.
• Over the last 8-10 years, the region has seen the introduction of Cable TV in ever increasing amounts. This Cable TV mounts an additional challenge to domestic terrestrial broadcasters, as they represent competition for viewers in the market place. With multi channels at their disposal, Cable TV is a formidable competitor to terrestrial T.V.
My recommendation on an appropriate response for broadcasters would be for stations to increase their level of regional and local material to displace imported programming and therefore brand their station based on its differentiated platform offering.
As if there were not enough for today’s beleaguered managers, we still have to contend with quirks in the regulatory environment, which compound the degree of difficulty for the broadcast manager.
• The last five (5) years especially, have seen a proliferation of licenses, namely radio, across the Caribbean. The practice by many Caribbean Governments without consultation with the industry, has led to some significant challenges to the industry. Firstly, in an advertising market place with little growth, a significant increase in players all depending on the same advertising revenues for their sustainability, invariably means the economic marginalization of even more stations.
Secondly, with licensing growing faster than our ability to turn out trained and experienced human resources, we are witnessing a diminishing standard of journalism and media reporting, signaling a deterioration of an industry, so important as to be called “the Fourth Estate”. And to what end, the much heralded “diversity in programming” has become more fiction than fact and we are being fed a diet of ‘more of the same’.
• We need also to see the broadcast landscape, regulating itself internally and therefore needing only oversight supervision from Independent Broadcast Authorities, with representation from the media, who will take over this role from central Government, thereby putting a healthy distance between Government and the media.
The struggles for such an environment, free of direct political influences on output, is critical to the ensurance, that our treasured media does not, even unwillingly succumb to the pressures to become a partisan political mouthpiece. An unfortunate practice being increasing adopted in the developed World.
Public policy cannot only be created by bureaucrats, but must have the important influence of those who have to live the industry, on a day to day basis.
Colleagues,
I have sought over the last 7 minutes to touch on some of the issues facing today’s managers within the industry. These are issues peculiar to the industry and do not factor in the traditional challenges facing all management in exercising the planning, organizing and leadership functions. What exacerbates the situation is that the industry is not a highly profitable one and one which cannot be simply commoditized.
With changing demand, changing competition, and changing technology, scarce capital have to be deployed with great caution and deliberation.
As difficult as these challenges may seem, they are not insurmountable, however we must get certain things right.
The Government must ensure a sufficiently enabling environment with appropriate consultation, and the industry will have to make some optimum choices as it relates to its human, technological, financial and strategic resources, if it intends to survive.
Challenging days ahead? – unquestionably so, but exciting days also.
Good luck to you all as we seek to walk through the minefield of challenges that are before us.