Category: Carnival

More On Carnival, CNMG, Copyright and Gayelle

February 17, 2010 by Taran Rampersad

When Edmund Gall first wrote about the de facto monopolization of Carnival broadcast rights in Trinidad and Tobago (read it!), he mentioned friend Mark Lyndersay's point that it was more about control than optimization. When I wrote about the issue last night, I took the same tack.

Is it the right tack? Some may not think so. Lets consider a parallel. Let us consider broadcast rights in sports.

In sports, media companies are granted rights to broadcast and rebroadcast a sporting event - be it the Olympics, the Super Bowl, cricket, tennis, etc. A key difference between carnival and sport is that sports broadcasts are typically of people getting paid to move a ball from one place to another. This is not to diminish their ability with balls - it is in fact because they are so good with moving balls around that they get paid. Carnival, on the other hand, has people who have paid to play mas (for foreigners, that means dancing and prancing in costumes some deem artistic).

Thus, the very basis of the parallel is skewed: Sports broadcasts are of people who are typically paid to play with balls. Carnival broadcasts are typically of people who paid to play themselves. The balls joke was too easy. {Read more}

Carnival, CNMG, Copyright and Gayelle

February 17, 2010 by Taran Rampersad

I would just like to point out that I'm supporting Gayelle here in Trinidad, that someone suing for coverage of what is labeled a cultural event is reprehensible.

I'd like to see everyone who was pictured or videoed under CNMG's copyright say that they signed a document stating that CNMG could exclusively display their images and videos for profit. Let me get this straight: people pay to play in bands, then the state owned enterprise CNMG takes the images of the people who spent money and profits from them?

Copyright. The government has taken a state owned corporation and made it in charge of commercial interests of Carnival - that's basically excising private enterprise and putting it in the hands of government. So the content that is owned by the State Owned Enterprise would belong to the government of Trinidad and Tobago which is supposed to be holding it in trust of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. What a brilliant way for the government to make money and assure more control of media in Trinidad and Tobago. A stupid tax with the capacity for censorship through a state run enterprise.

Hitler would be so proud! Not only getting the propaganda machine up but having the people subsidize it with their own spending on costumes, etc. {Read more}

The CNMG experience: How to crash T&T's Carnival Big Truck

February 16, 2010 by Edmund Gall

A few weeks ago, the T&T government decided to award sole rights to distribute coverage of major Carnival 2010 events to its own media house: the Caribbean New Media Group (CNMG).  On the face of it, this seemed sensible: award management of the distribution to a trusted partner.  However, though CNMG has been streaming its own programmes on the Internet for over a year at www.ctntworld.com, it proved to be completely unable to handle streaming of T&T Carnival.

First, we have to question whether the decision to manage radio, video and Internet coverage of Carnival 2010 was borne out of a wish by the government, through its Ministry of Culture, to really make the most of this tremendous marketing opportunity.  According to local photojournalist, Mark Lyndersay, it appears that the motivation was control rather than optimisation: see his extremely enlightening BitDepth article on the matter.

Second, the expected first step for CNMG would be re-licensing of other providers to share in the distribution of the events for a fee.  It did this with the radio feeds, since Internet users can listen to coverage of events via non-CNMG stations.  However, CNMG decided not to share Internet streaming with other distributors, as described in this When Steel Talks (WST) article on the exclusion of T&T culture media house WACK.  Given government's history of planned failure, folks involved in culture rightly became worried by this imposed single point of failure for video coverage. {Read more}

Beyonce. OK.

January 14, 2010 by Taran Rampersad

Everyone seems to have something to say about Beyonce coming to Trinidad and Tobago (Paolo Kernahan's latest is the best so far, I think). This one has a ghastly picture of Beyonce, but did a good job of hitting the high points for the international community. The local community? 

Well, everyone has an opinion.

Here's mine.

(1) TSTT/bMobile is supposed to have less than 15% profitability due to the nature of the Trinidad and Tobago government's controlling interest. If this has not changed over the years, they have money to toss away at anyone who will shake their posterior, literally or otherwise.

(2) Expectations of TSTT and the reality of TSTT are ripe with disparity.

(3) Expectations of T&T government and the reality of T&T government are becoming increasingly ripe with disparity.

(4) People are buying the tickets.

The endgame here is the result. The result is that the concert isn't likely to bust because, as parliament and internet porn stats go, Trinbagonians like to see people shake their posteriors in public and will even pay people to do so. The entire Media industry in Trinidad and Tobago revolves around that.

And so, the posterior-shaking will continue unabated, without pause and without apology. The real topic is a matter of taste - whose posterior people want to watch shake. Capitalism may or may not be trumping democracy but what is interesting is that in a period of foreign exchange deficit, someone is seeing fit to allow even more money to leave the country. {Read more}