THE CARIBBEAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION’S (CBC) decision to terminate the Best and Mason radio programme has been described as “a woeful insensitivity and a sorry dereliction of its public duty”.
Attorney-at-law Ralph Thorne, QC, who is representing co-host Andrew Mason, made the comment yesterday while responding to a CBC press statement which indicated that the popular sports programme was being pulled because of adverse financial circumstances.
CBC?also denied any political motivation behind the termination.
But Thorne submitted that the Pine broadcasting station continued to support several of its radio and television programmes which were without sponsorship and were far more expensive to produce than the Best and Mason show.
“We will do no discredit to the producers and presenters in naming these radio and television programmes, but producing and presenting the Best And Mason show over one and a half hours on Tuesday nights has been an extremely inexpensive undertaking to CBC.
The excuse ofcost-cutting is feeble and can be entirely dismissed,” he added.
Thorne also took issue with CBC’s comments that it did not receive any of taxpayers dollars for its survival.
“It is a part of the insensitivity that makes CBC now unaware that much of the popular commitment to the entity is related to the fact that Barbadians know that millions of dollars in public funds have been invested into the Corporation from its inception almost 50 years ago to the present.”
Thorne also said the public would decide whether or not the Best And Mason show was terminated on political grounds.
“We say, let the evidence manifest itself and let the public be the judge.
“We must also say that by this attempted assassination of the many voices of Best And Mason, CBC has taken freedom of speech into the dark time.”
When contacted last night, co-host Carlisle Best said he was not surprised about the development.
“It is sad that the ordinary man in the street feels now they don’t have a voice in cricket. The Best And Mason show provided them with this window of opportunity,” he said.
Last November 26 CBC, in a letter to Mason and Best, informed them the radio show would be discontinued effective December 31.
