THERE WAS a last-minute flood of applications into the New Kingston offices of the Broadcasting Commission yesterday as local cable operators rushed to meet a 5:00 p.m. deadline for them to provide proof the channels they offer are accessed legally.
Sonia Gill, assistant executive director at the commission, would not comment on the specifics of the information presented by the cable providers, but said data was "still coming in as we speak".
"We are fully expectant that all licensees will have at least made significant efforts to demonstrate they are in compliance," she said.
In June, the Commission warned it would recommend that Information Minister, Senator Maxine Henry-Wilson, suspend the licences of cable providers who failed to provide the requisite paperwork and who refused to remove channels to which they had no legal access.
Monday, August 7 at midnight was the deadline for those channels to be removed from the system, Ms. Gill said.
She said the commission had received assurances from the executive of the Jamaica Community Association of Community Cable Operators (JACCO), the umbrella organisation representing cable providers as recently as late last week, that they would be complying with its directive.
Last week, JACCO's president, Colin Innis, said he was confident the deadline would be met.
Ms. Gill said the commission would engage in follow-up investigations as of this week and would continue dialogue with the licensees on their individual status to facilitate full compliance.
With only about 70 of the more than 100 channels offered locally being legally available, there is some expected fallout in the sector as some popular channels are expected to be among those to be axed.
The move by the commission to get tough on illegal cable providers is partly due to pressure from United States-based cable companies which have threatened action over the illegal showing of material in breach of their intellectual property rights.
