Bahamas Consultation on Content Regulation

Over the past few months, the Bahamas Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) has been conducting a consultation on content regulation. Under the newly-promulgated Communications Act, 2009, URCA is mandated to issue new Codes of Practice for audiovisual media services and to develop complaints-handling procedures for dealing with complaints by the public regarding alleged breaches of the Codes. These Codes are intended to cover areas such as the protection of children, harm and offence, taste and decency, accuracy and fairness, political broadcasts, advertising and sponsorship, and guaranteed access to certain kinds of content and services (e.g. relating to national emergencies and disasters).

In the consultation document, published last February, URCA indicated that it was inclined to delegate this task to an industry Working Group, composed of representatives of the broadcasters, cable operator, independent production companies and the public at large. However, if the Statement of Results published last week is any indication, URCA may have some difficulty in generating sufficient interest from these stakeholders to make this process work. This paragraph from the Executive Summary is particularly revealing:

(...) URCA is disappointed with the low number of responses received to an important consultation that will affect all Bahamian radio and TV broadcasters. It is particularly discouraging that none of the broadcasters took the opportunity to formally respond to the consultation. As URCA is proposing a co-regulatory framework to develop the Codes of Practice, it does not auger well for the proposed framework if the industry did not respond to the public consultation, the first phase of the process. For such a model to be effective, it is necessary for regulated companies to participate actively in the regulatory process, for example by responding to consultations that directly affect them. The fact that no broadcasters responded to URCA’s consultation on developing Codes of Practice highlights the fact that Bahamian companies might not yet be accustomed to playing their required role in the development and implementation of public policy.

Unfortunately, this lack of participation in regulatory proceedings is common across the Caribbean. This is particularly true in regulatory proceedings involving broadcasters. Contrary to the Caribbean companies operating in the telecommunications sphere (e.g. Digicel, Cable & Wireless/LIME, etc), the Caribbean broadcasters are generally quite small and localized. As a result, they suffer from a lack of scale and resources, which prevents them from employing dedicated legal or policy experts – either in-house or through industry groups – to manage regulatory affairs. In smaller countries such as The Bahamas, companies have limited resources, making it harder for them to devote time and effort to regulatory affairs. One solution to this conundrum may be for broadcasters to pool their resources on a regional basis. Perhaps this is a gap that could be filled by the Caribbean Broadcasting Union?