After pulling the plug on the failed state-owned television station, TTT, and bankrolling a fresh start-up, Caribbean News Media Group (CNMG) which is yet to make any money, Government is considering merging all of its media assets, in the hopes of creating a media powerhouse. The media assets include the newly-created Government Information Services Ltd (GISL), the Information Channel 4, CNMG (Channel 6) and its four radio stations, 610 AM, 91.1 FM, 98.9 FM and 100 FM.

Information Minister Neil Parsanlal, in a short telephone interview with the Sunday Express, admitted that Government was reviewing a number of options to make the ’best use of its media assets’. He was quick to point out that there was nothing ’definitive at this time’.

’There are ongoing discussions,’ was all Minister Parsanlal would say, in response to questions about the proposed wholesale merger of all of the State’s media resources. ’It is a non-story at the moment,’ he insisted.

CNMG chairman Marlon Holder also had little to say about merger talks. ’Government is looking for the best return on its investment,’ he told the Sunday Express, adding that up to Friday, the CNMG board of directors had received no detailed plan from its sole shareholder.

He said until Government mapped out its plan for a way forward, it was ’business as usual’ at CNMG. Chief executive officer at CNMG Dominic Beaubrun, whose contract comes to an end at the end of February, said there was ’a challenge’ between the rationalising of State media assets and Government information needing to find its place.

’Whatever the outcome,’ said Beaubrun, ’the challenge will continue to be what role, if any, does Government have in media? His head of news, Curtis Williams, said he was not aware of any merger talks. ’We continue to pursue the news in the same independent way since we started,’ said Williams, adding, ’we have been fiercely independent and we continue do that.’

Reached for comment, GISL chief executive officer Maxie Cuffie said: ’Those kinds of decisions are above my pay grade. I am not aware of any such decisions being taken.’

Dr Lenny Saith, Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister and the man who presided over TTT’s closure and CNMG’s start-up, declined comment, saying he didn’t want to pre-empt the Information Minister.

He said Minister Parsanlal was in the process of examining the State’s media holdings, in an attempt at reorganisation. As to the debate on wider Government-controlled state TV, Dr Saith only said: ’When it comes to Cabinet we will discuss it.’

But the idea that CNMG, a reincarnated TTT, might go the route of a Government-controlled broadcasting structure has alarmed many people, both inside and outside the State-owned TV station.

Observers contend that the argument for turning CNMG into a public-service, broadcasting-type organisation was less than compelling, given its continued heavy reliance on the public purse since its 2005 start-up, and the danger of the station becoming a conduit for propaganda disguised as news.