By IPS Correspondents
KINGSTON, Jul 16 1998 (IPS)

What do you do when your continued pleas for less violence and sex on television and more family oriented programmes go unheeded?

Well, launch your own television station.

At least that is how a group of religious leaders have reacted. And it is a position which has resulted in the launching of LOVE TV as the newest television station here is called.

And viewers who tune into this station will not expect to see any gun play or people taking off their clothes and hopping into bed, but they can expect to feast on wholesome, healthy information from the Bible, the leaders say.

“The electronic media is largely out of sync with what is desirable. There is too much that is crass, crude and vulgar,” says Pastor Mercliff Weir, a leader in the Seventh Day Adventist church.

“The church is aware of the power of the media to affect lives and we believe TV will be a most powerful agency for the transmission of positive attitudes and the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Weir adds.

Religious leaders feel that the use of popular media has now become one of the most effective means of ensuring that religion occupies a prominent place in the psyche of the general population.

Until the middle of the 1980s the government owned and operated one of the two radio stations and the only television station here. But in 1987 when the government decided to undertake a divestment programme the media industry expanded rapidly and the island’s top church leaders were determined to get in on the action.

Toward the end of that year the National Religious Media Commission (NRMC) was formed. According to the NRMC’s Memorandum of Association, it was established “to create religious awareness through words, music, art form, drama or any other means, to promote religious interests, to evangelise and to support the spiritual body with religious material.”

In 1992 NRMC was granted a licence to operate a radio and television station. The following year the radio station, LOVE FM was launched and it quickly carved out a niche for itself among the local audience. By that time the media landscape had expanded moving from two radio stations to eight, from one television station to two and from one daily newspaper to three.

However unlike LOVE FM, things did not go as smoothly for LOVE TV.

The NRMC had hoped to launch the television station by the end of 1996 but failed to meet the deadline and the four other dates that were subsequently set.

“We were deterred and hampered mainly through lack of financial resources,” says Reverend Carmen Stewart, chairperson of the NRMC.

As a result the organisation went in search of partners both locally and overseas and eventually came to an agreement under which the Trimedia Company in Orlando, Florida provided transmission equipment for their studio.

In addition to problems with funding and equipment LOVE TV’s management also had to deal with other headaches such as a Subscriber TV company which was broadcasting pornographic movies on the same channel it was showing LOVE TV.

Viewers complained to the station and the situation was reported to the local broadcasting commission and eventually resolved.

Now that the station is up and running, the religious leaders are confident that the worst is behind them and they have high expectations for the project. For them, a religious television station has become a necessity because of the negative impact that secular programming has been having on the society.

“We recognise the great force of influencing the knowledge, attitudes and behaviour of our viewers. There have been many discussions and views expressed about the extent to which our young people are being influenced by the media and in particular, television. LOVE TV does want to strongly influence — but in a positive way — the morals and attitude of our youth,” says Stewart.

The church leaders are also hoping that LOVE TV will have a positive influence on the way journalism is practised in Jamaica.

“We must be unafraid to enlighten the nation as we develop a standard of journalism that is excellent,” says President of the Jamaica Council of Churches, Stanley Clarke.

However, there are those who are sounding a word of caution to these religious leaders as the project could prove to be more challenging at this point in the nation’s history than they think.

The government’s divestment programme opened up the media to several competitors who are now vying for audience share. The two established local secular stations are currently doing battle with each other for viewership and with Subscriber TV which has become immensely popular among the local population.

“Subscriber TV now attracts about half of the television viewing public…,” Dr. Elaine Wallace Director of the government’s Information Division said recently.

Wallace says LOVE TV will also have to compete with the Internet. “The Internet is challenging the very foundation of the telecommunications industry and is already competing with broadcast and cable in offering entertainment, information and education with its interactive capabilities,” she says.

Additionally, as the country continues to grapple with harsh economic times, the advertising revenues of most media houses have decreased. The electronic media has felt the brunt of the blow as revenues have decreased by as much as 25 percent in some cases.

However local media research expert Donald Anderson thinks there is a place in the country for LOVE TV.

“They have gained about 2.78 percent of the audience since they’ve been on for 24 hours. The figure suggests that there is room for them,” he says.

What may hurt the station’s chances for survival, Anderson says, is the fact that unlike the two older stations, Super Supreme Television and CVM Television, under the licence granted to LOVE TV, Subscriber TV providers do not have to carry that station.

But if the radio station is any indication of the potential audience for religious programming, the television station should pull through, Anderson says.

“The radio station has 15 percent of the total radio audience which puts them in third place so that is heartening. The fact that the television station already has three percent says that some people are watching them,” he says.

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