More arguments over Gov TV

There's a debate on the worth of CITV, the government-owned and produced cable channel, taking place at the Progressive Minds blog. There's much support for this TV station from most of the people posting there, claiming that it adds much value to our society. The general protest against it is that Government (a) spent too much money, (b) should not be involved in broadcasting.

I even posed a question there but it got lost in the debate over what Government should and shouldn't be doing. My personal opinion is that there are currently three TV stations, not counting Fresh TV, that have the capability to show local programming produced by local organisations including Government itself.

That said, I have no problem and think it's commendable for a Government area to produce local TV programmes that cover history, culture, education, environment, etc. But I don't think that Government needed to create a whole new TV station to broadcast those programmes. VSB, for instance, doesn't really show much of anything on Sunday mornings. ZBM is usually idle during that Oprah Winfrey timeslot on ZFB. As someone pointed out, there are cable channels LookTV and OnionTV which may be of use in showing local programmes.

Speaking from the Barbados experience and my favourite channel of all time, one CBC (inside joke), which has come along leaps and bounds in recent years, they're a government-funded (as opposed to government-run) TV station which provides local programming throughout the day. The situation is a bit different there because they're a monopoly in local TV and operate in a nation with great national pride (each probably influenced the other), but I think that rather than spend money on a brand new channel Government could have used less funds, guaranteed itself daily or weekly airtime on the public TV (and radio) channels of its choosing and still provided the country with the programmes of choice. From all accounts on the Prog Minds blog, the shows themselves are of high quality compared to Bermuda Broadcasting's in-house shows, so they ought to get an audience if they were moved to local TV.