Falklands : PUBLIC MEETING REPORT (04/22/08)
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 23.04.2008 (Article Archived on 07.05.2008)
A public meeting was held in the Court and Council Chamber of the Town Hall at 1700hrs on Tuesday, 22 April 2008.
A public meeting was held in the Court and Council Chamber of the Town Hall at 1700hrs on Tuesday, 22 April 2008. Present were Cllrs Birmingham, Clausen, Stevens and Cockwell with Cllr Rendell acting as Chair. Mr. Stuart Holms of BFBS came along to answer technical questions.
PUBLIC MEETING REPORT (04/22/08)
Part 1: Provision of BFBS Television
By J. Brock (FINN)
A public meeting was held in the Court and Council Chamber of the Town Hall at 1700hrs on Tuesday, 22 April 2008. Present were Cllrs Birmingham, Clausen, Stevens and Cockwell with Cllr Rendell acting as Chair. Mr. Stuart Holms of BFBS came along to answer technical questions.
Cllr Rendell explained the background into why the decision was taken to put a proposal to the population to have them pay to receive BFBS. He said that some time ago BFBS were going to change their method of transmission from Analogue to Digital sent via satellite and this means the old system is going to go by April 2009. “So,” he continued, “we have to have a new system to replace it.” When it became known to Councillors that this was going to happen, FIG put out a questionnaire (the results of which were partially leaked to the media) and 91 % of the responders (290 to 301 people – 27% of those polled) wanted to continue watching BFBS. “To us – Government – it was a fairly strong indication that we should continue with BFBS TV, if it wasn’t possible for the private sector to do so. We made enquiries to BFBS to see if that was a feasible option and the response from BFBS was that it wasn’t.”
Cllr Rendell said that the cost of operating the new system – capital costs and installation not included – was around £233,000.00 per annum. He continued that while live no one wanted to go back to the tape service that was received through the mail. “It was decided in EXCO that it was very important and therefore we decided to take it forward,” he said.
“We are not doing it because we want to do it. We are doing it because we have an obligation to do it,” Cllr Rendell said.
The first to respond was Mike Forrest, who asked whether the EXCO paper concerning this proposal would be published. Would there be something in there Councillors don’t want us to see? He also wanted to know who would be paying for the service, as it wasn’t clear on the survey that was taken who was going to pay. He questioned whether the cost would be paid by all households on a mandatory basis. Or would it be across the 91% of the respondents who wanted to pay for the service.
Cllr Rendell explained that the EXCO paper was 10 pages long and gave all the responses that were received and Mr Forrest asked if the paper were still classified. Cllr Rendell explained that the paper was long and complicated and indicated that was why the paper was not published. Mr Forrest indicated that people could figure out what it meant. “I am not sure that we could understand it,” said Cllr Rendell. He went on to say that one of the reasons why it wasn’t published was because of some of the statements that were made. It is clear by this that the EXCO paper referred to is the results of the survey.
Cllr Clausen, responding to the low number of people who completed the questionnaire said that you will never get 100% responses
Mr Forrest then asked would people who do not want the service and do not watch it have to pay for it. “If people don’t have a television then there is no argument at all,” said Cllr Rendell. If people had a television but say that they don’t want to watch BFBS then I think we have to get into some kind of declaration that they would sign to that affect that they don’t watch BFBS,” he continued.
Mr Forrest asked about going through a decoder system that apparently would be in place in Camp and Cllr Rendell said it would cost the householder more money because there would have to be a decoder for every TV in the house. He emphasised that there is a lot more cost for an encryption/decoder system.
Stuart Holms explained about the system Stanley residents would have to put up with. He said that the word, decoder was a misnomer and that it was actually a “Set Top Box” that you could use in the UK absolutely for free. “There is no encryption and it is absolutely free to air. You can buy these on Amazon, at the FIC – you can buy them anywhere,” he said. He said that a lot of the TVs on sale at the FIC can already pick up the signal because they are digital TVs. The complication would be on the top of that adding an encryption package.
There would be a different system for TV reception in that there was a satellite receiver already in place. Camp and Stanley would use two different methods..
Tim Miller asked if BFBS had enquired about using a private contractor to set up a system and Cllr Stevens, who was in the initial meetings, said that BFBS were uncomfortable with allowing their product to go through a 3rd party. Also, he mentioned that BFBS was a charity and could not operate like a business. Cllr Rendell agreed and said that any profit made by BFBS goes to charity.
Mr Miller then asked if a private contractor would be willing to bring down ITV and BBC programming. Cllr Stevens was non committal as to who was approached and what was said. (Mario Zuvic of KTV advises that he was approached and that he told Councillors in various informal meetings with Peter King as well, that whatever BFBS can legally provide to the Civilian population, so can KTV. This has been proven by the provision of Sky News in the Falklands.) Cllr Stevens subsequently said that he couldn’t answer the question because he was not provided with evidence – facts and figures though he did ask the questions.
Cllr Rendell said that if this could be done and it didn’t cost the Falklands any more, “then we would have done it.”
Tim Miller continued that it should be possible for people to opt out and Mr. Forrest also asked again whether it was possible to opt out of watching BFBS. Cllr Rendell said that it was possible that an “opt out” form could be introduced. It is intended to put this form with the invoice for water and waste removal. It would be up to FIG to agree or disagree. There were difficulties with that in that it would have to be enforced. “We certainly don’t want to get into a situation where we would be policing it,” he said. He went on to say that a decision about a form won’t be taken probably until next month. Cllr Stevens said that we needed to make this as simple as possible.
Tim Miller asked if there were going to be a whole new Government Department set up to maintain the system and Councillors indicated that maintenance would be BFBS’ responsibility.
“We are doing exactly what has been suggested – taking on a sub-contractor – it’s BFBS,” said Cllr Cockwell. “So where’s the issue,” he continued?
“BFBS isn’t going to be doing maintenance other than on the transmission system, Said Mr. Holms.
Stephen Luxton asked about why Mt Moriah couldn’t be used to get TV to all the West and Mr Holms said the problem was that all the infrastructure that is there is beyond repair as it has been there for 16 years. Satellite dishes would be needed for people who can’t receive from Mt Moriah anyway – like Port Stevens. The other side of it is if individuals had dishes it would be difficult to pinpoint any failure in the system
Roger Spink asked who pays for a block of flats or would each child in the Hostel have to pay. Would it be the same as the UK system for TV licensing. Cllr Cockwell added that it would be that way if we copied the UK system but the Falklands may not wish to copy the UK System.
Steve Dent questioned Councillors about whether each individual would have to pay a licence fee whether or not they watched BFBS or whether or not they wanted to pay for it.
Cllr Rendell said that if people opted out then those who watched the service would have to take up the slack. If too many people opted out the people who watched would have to pay a high TV fee. What went through people’s minds was that if too many people opted out, the project could be ill conceived and perhaps it should cease before any more money was spent on it.
Cllr Birmingham said that our tax money is used for the Leisure centre though not everyone in the Falklands uses it. He also said that FIGAS is also funded by taxes though not all in the Falklands uses it. What he didn’t say is that if you don’t use either service then you are not required to pay for the use of the pool and/or gym facilities in the Leisure Centre and if you don’t fly on FIGAS, you are not forced to buy tickets.
Dr Barry Elsby asked about what price pensioners and those with less means would pay. No decision had been made but it could be that pensioners would only pay half of the fee.
David Pickup confirmed that no decisions have been made but there would be problems with enforcement if people opted out of the project.
Cllr Rendell said he considered the feedback very useful and that a decision had not yet been made on what the fee would be, how to monitor the service or how it would be collected.
Mr Holms said that in September the satellite system would be changed and that MPA would be using it from then. A delayed service can be up and running in camp by then as well. He said that at the moment the service viewed on West Falkland is generated at MPA but by delaying the satellite system for Camp there was a guarantee that the service wouldn’t be interrupted.
Keith Watson said that he paid a substantial amount of money for KTV and that he liked the service it provided. He went on to ask about enforcement and if equipment was available in the Falklands to detect whether or not someone was watching digital TV. Mr Holms said any system like that would be very expensive.
Cllr Rendell said that they were nowhere near making a decision on this. Cllr Birmingham said that perhaps the Legal profession should be charged at a double rate. (This was a joke)
Phil Middleton asked again about the private sector providing individual programmes like Eastenders and Coronation Street. He said that TV was entertainment and Government shouldn’t get involved in that. Cllr Stevens said that Government have been through the process of asking about someone to do this and a lot of other questions were asked as well.
Phil Middleton: So you are saying the private sector cannot provide the programmes that are on BFBS?
Cllr Stevens said that in the time frame allotted Councillors wanted facts and figures and they didn’t get any of that evidence. The question was asked.
Stephen Luxton asked if Cable & Wireless could provide high speed data to carry the TV signal. Cllr Stevens answered that it comes back to the fact that BFBS didn’t want to broadcast their signal through a third party.
Gordon Ewing wanted to know who would make the decision to accept the reasoning when people said they wanted to opt out.
Cllr Clausen said that they were still in the process of making a decision on that.
Mike Forrest wanted to know what it would cost to encrypt the signal and who would pay for Camp installations. Cllr Rendell said that FIG would pay for installation in Camp. Steve Dent said that this means FIG would spend more money on Camp installations than is spent in Stanley where the bulk of the population is. Cllr Birmingham pointed out that Great Britain defended us and FIG traditionally accepted the responsibility for such things.
A question was asked about taking another survey, seeing that it was not clear on the previous one that people were expected to pay for the service. Councillors do not want to do another survey as it would cost too much and they did not have time to do another survey before the system would be put into place.
Steve Dent suggested that people should e-mail Councillors to express their opinions but Cllr Cockwell said that ideas about a decoder and such like had not been thrown out yet and they were an option which is being looked at. He went on to say that Councillors need to find some way which is satisfactory where if someone wants to opt out they can do so. Councillor Cockwell is sure this will be achieved. But hanging up the airwaves at this stage with e-mails was not the issue because they had to get the system right.
Roger Spink asked again what the charge per household be. Bearing in mind that the survey statistics were not released and people could only guess what they might be, Councillors said that figures published in the media were wrong. £233,000.00 divided by the 1103 households in Stanley would bring the reported £300.00 down to £211.82 per annum. However, Cllr Rendell pointed out that a scrambled system with a swipe card and a decoder would add an extra £150.00 on to that figure. That’s £361.82.
Cllr Cockwell said that he would not be prepared to make people pay for BFBS if people didn’t want it.
Keith Watson said that people should be able to choose a TV service, implying that it shouldn’t be forced on them.
Mike Forrest suggested that the planned new extension at the Police Station would not be able to contain the number of people who refuse pay for a service they didn’t want.
(End Part 1)
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