Icasa presents ‘illogical’ rulings
VAGUE: CREATING LAWS FROM INDETERMINATE DESCRIPTIONS
Communications authority risks strangulation by regulation.
descriptions, impossible to define and measure.
Icasa has not provided any meaningful definitions for their vague references, for example:
“Developmental sports” are aimed at promoting “social change”, “enlarging the population’s choices”, and “increasing opportunities to all members of the society”.
“Minority sports” means any sport that “does not have the majority of the population’s following”.
The broadcasting of national sporting events must reach a “wider audience” (Icasa has not identified the audience, has no statistics to indicate the size, and therefore cannot determine whether the audience has “widened”).
And Icasa does not differentiate between TV and radio. “Full live coverage”, of say chess, would apply to radio as well, but without the digital image. Go figure.
There are further nonsensical rulings:
The group A national sporting events must be broadcast on free-to-air with full live coverage (presumably this means from beginning to end), and includes the summer Olympic games, at which 33 sporting events will take place over two weeks. It is not possible to cover every single event live, with “full coverage”.
A free-to-air licensee must be allowed to bid for the rights on a “non-exclusive basis” if they cannot acquire the sporting rights in group A. However, paid subscriptions subsidise the broadcast of free-to-air. If free-to-air were given equal rights, no one would bother to pay-to-watch. This would destroy pay TV.
Group B national sporting events, such as the Comrades Marathon, are offered to a “subscription broadcasting licensee on a non-exclusive basis under sub-licencing conditions”. Group C includes the minority and development sports such as indigenous games, chess and varsity sports. Broadcasters must broadcast at least two events a year, this would entail full live coverage from beginning to end.
Multichoice, in their submission to Icasa, noted (paraphrased): There are no winners here. The viability of both subscription and free-to air broadcasters would be negatively impacted. The draft regulations are likely to result in less, not more, sport being broadcast.
Icasa has issued some 113 final regulations and runs the imminent risk of strangulation by regulation.
Icasa doesn’t differentiate between TV and radio