THE TTT TRAVESTY

TAXPAYERS have spent some $300 million on Trinidad and Tobago Television since the station was rebranded in late 2015.

A 2019 survey found that the broadcaster had an audience similar to Tobago’s Channel 5.

“The company’s falling audiences mean it is no longer able to generate revenue to cover its basic operating cost,” an independent report stated.

When I appeared before a parliamentary committee on behalf of TTT’s forerunner company in 2011, Colm Imbert, then an opposition member, queried why taxpayers were still funding a broadcast house.

Today, as Finance Minister, Imbert signs subsidy cheques to TTT from a deficit national budget sustained by high-interest borrowings.

A financial analysis shows that since its re-launch in 2006, the State media company performed best between 2011 and 2015.

It is clear why the Government keeps propping up the insolvent Maraval Road broadcaster when traditional media are falling apart faster than Stuart Young’s PNM campaign.

Donna Cox, who served as Communications Minister in 2019, spoke about “TTT being able to showcase the work of the Government.”

Then-TTT Chair Lisa Agard was quoted as saying that “she (the minister) also recognises that the station must be the single source of truth for the Government’s efforts and policies.”

In other words, unvarnished Government propaganda!

Those who could stomach the evening newscasts and online feed would see barefaced Government doctrine and unquestioning party line.

The taxpayer-funded broadcaster has effectively replaced Government Information Services Ltd., which was designed to produce official State messages.

There have been no challenges to this disturbing state of affairs from sanctimonious media partisans and a new wave of industry eat-ah-fooders.

Cox’s comments prompted media veteran Bernard Pantin to write: “It would be difficult for TTT News to be independent in the face of such expectations.”

TTT has simply slumped back into its cosy fix as a handmaiden of the Government, where journalists and talk show hosts know who is paying the bills.

There are competent professionals, but political appointments and deep urban loyalties to the PNM have built resentment to an alternative narrative.

In 2014, an engineering problem mysteriously developed during an outside broadcast at the office of the Member of Parliament for Siparia, who was the then-Prime Minister.

Relevant employees failed to diagnose and, therefore, did not solve the problem and rescue the broadcast.

TTT ‘s bosses overturned the policy introduced in 2011 to broadcast all major religious and cultural festivals.

I was, therefore, surprised at the decision to televise Divali Nagar.

But in an election season, all things are possible – and likely.

The failure to broadcast the address of the Opposition Leader and the absence of an explanation is hardly surprising.

TTT is a travesty funded by taxpayers who can ill afford its burdensome cost.