BY SHARON LYM, Trinidad Guardian

The National Broadcasting Network Ltd has brought the exclusive television and radio broadcasts rights for Carnival 2004.

Yesterday, media houses were informed NBN had acquired the rights for all Carnival shows under the jurisdiction of the National Carnival Commission, as well as special groups including the National Carnival Bands Association, National Carnival Development Foundation, Pan Trinbago and the Trinbago Unified Calypso Organisation.

NBN is now offering other media houses broadcast access rights only, on a non-exclusive basis.

While Trinidad Broadcasting Company's general manager Brandon Khan expressed surprise at the news, NCC chairman Kenny De Silva said this was not the first time a media house had acquired the exclusive rights to broadcast their Carnival events.

De Silva admitted the rights had not been tendered, but said NBN, TV6 and radio stations had previously had exclusive rights.

He said this time around, NBN had made them an offer the Board could not refuse.

De Silva said NBN's offer was more than the NCC historically received collectively from the media houses for the broadcast rights.

He said while they accepted NBN's offer this year, this does not pre-empt the Board from accepting bids from other media houses next year.

"We now have a figure to go by," De Silva said.

Dominic Beaubrun, NBN's acting chief executive officer, said in an interview:

"I thought it (the rights) was a valuable enough commodity to make a bid for exclusivity, so that the value of NCC governed products could see lucrative returns."

Both Beaubrun and De Silva were both tight-lipped about the amount paid for the exclusive rights.

Meanwhile, Khan said: "What makes the news even more unbelievable is that TBC, in collaboration with TUCO, provides a car for the Road March competition.

"I would think they would have at least officially informed us," he added.

©2003-2004 Trinidad Publishing Company Limited