BBC SUSPENDS BROADCASTS ON SLBC

The radio channel has lost 2M. because of obstructions caused to BBC

 Peter Horocks, Director of the World BBC service has declared yesterday to suspend all BBC broadcasts of Sri Lanka in future because under the instructions of the President of BBC programmes, broadcasts over the Broadcasting Corporation has been disturbed and other segments of news is being combined.

             As a result of this, a large income received by the Broadcasting Corporation through the BBC has been lost. Income from commercial advertisements too had declined and the Broadcasting Corporation which is running at a loss is now in dire straits.

            English, Sinhala and Tamil programmes were broadcast for a period of three and a half air time over the BBC World service on a daily basis. Upto that time the BBC had paid a sum of 90,000 dollars for 6 months to the Broadcasting Corporation which amounts to approximately 20 lakhs of income per month.

           On occasions when messages not partial to the government are being broadcast by the BBC, the SLBC had on a number of occasions attempted to cover them up with some background instrumental being played in a manner that listeners are not able to properly listen to what is being broadcast. What was reported last week was that when impartial broadcasts were being relayed over the Tamil service, the sound was decreased and instead 2 Tamil announcers were used to add  favourable news clips where the government was concerned.

          It is understood from SLBC quarters that when such disturbances took place last 16th and 18th, two Tamil announcers, Takeshan and Yogaraja were used to change the broadcast in Sri Lanka.

          It was after this incident that Peter Horocks, Director of the BBC World Service has taken steps to immediately put a stop to the broadcasting of all BBC Sinhala, Tamil and English programmes. Such disturbances have occured continuously over the Tamil service radio programmes. He apologised for the inconvenience caused to listeners in terminating the programmes and explained the reason as a violation of the SLBC Agreement by acting in a manner that damages the ingenuity of the programmes.

        The Director of the BBC World Service remarked that it could not be accepted at all that any steps could be taken to disturb BBC broadcasts without first notifying in case there were any problems relating to the context of BBC broadcasts, as agreed upon earlier.

        Prior to this too, in the year 2009 the BBC had terminated programmes as a result of similar disturbance.
       
       As the income of the SLBC had dropped as a consequence of the decision of the BBC, it is reported that a severe crisis had cropped up in relation to payment of salaries to its employees in addition to other expenditure.