Ellen Stolz
SUVA (Fiji Sun / Pacific Media Watch): One of the country’s three free-to-air TV stations, Fiji Television, has been assured its licence will be renewed for another 12 years, its chairperson said yesterday.
Isoa Kaloumaira said in a South Pacific Stock Exchange announcement that there had been a lot of speculation and it had created justifiable concerns from Fiji TV's shareholders.
The speculation has been featured in anti-government blogsite Coup 4.5 and has been picked up by a Cook Islands-based regional media activist group, Pacific Freedom Forum (PFF).
Kaloumaira stressed Fiji TV had been given a formal assurance from the Minister of Communications, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, that its broadcast licence would be renewed for a further 12-year term. Fiji TV's current broadcast licence expires on June 30, 2012.
Kaloumaira said that Sayed-Khaiyum wrote to Fiji Television on 14 October 2011 confirming the renewal.
The Fiji TV management has since had meetings and discussions with Ministry of Communications officials on the terms and conditions of the licence.
Information was sought on the ethnic language based programmes and other relevant programme and technical information, he said.
Fiji TV operates its free-to-air station in Fiji and its pay TV service Sky Pacific in Fiji and 10 other Pacific Island countries.
Fiji TV also owns the free-to-air commercial station EMTV in Papua New Guinea and has approval to launch a station in Solomon Islands.
Kaloumaira said the company continued to play an important role in bringing news, current affairs, sports, information and entertainment programming to Fiji and the Pacific Islands.
In Fiji, it competes with the state-run FBC TV and Mai TV in the free-to-air market and Pacific Broadcasting Services (PBS TV) in the pay-TV market.
Earlier report
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Pacific Media Watch
