B.C.B. Vice Chairman asked to resign in political row
While the minor excitement in Collet left the participants unharmed, the political pressures being exerted at the government’s radio station have claimed their first casualty of the electoral season. Reliable sources have informed News Five that B.C.B. deputy chairman Cynthia Henry has been asked by the Minister of Broadcasting to resign her post. The flashpoint in the relationship, which was never particularly cordial in the first place, apparently was the corporation’s decision refusing to allow the People’s United Party to purchase advertising time on the station’s morning show between six fifteen and eight forty five. The ban, allegedly ordered by Minister of Broadcasting Hubert Elrington through B.C.B. Chairman Victor Lewis, also applied to U.D.P. advertising. The problem, however, is that at the same time, the morning show was converted into a nonstop cheerleading rally for government ministers and policies, hosted not by B.C.B. announcers, but by government propagandists. Henry, a veteran broadcasting professional, who got her start at the B.C.B. and later spent over twenty years with United Nations Radio, is said to have objected to the policy, which is in obvious contravention of the act which created the B.C.B., not to mention the U.D.P.’s own 1993 manifesto. Word is that when she complained to Minister Elrington his response was essentially that if she couldn’t go with the program she shouldn’t bother to serve on the board. News Five managed to contact Henry late this afternoon but she declined to comment on the allegations and would neither confirm nor deny whether she was still a member of B.C.B.’s board. Meanwhile, morale at the B.C.B. is said to be at an all time low and there are claims that the corporation’s chairman, Victor Lewis, has taken over the day to day running of the station, bypassing its chief executive officer, Danalyn Myvett. As if things weren’t bad enough, employees are getting little comfort from the opposition, as the P.U.P., in its just released manifesto, has pledged to privatize the government owned institution.
