TTT sorry for Kamla’s interrupted speech | Local news

Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) says it will broadcast a full, uninterrupted recording of the fifth night of Diwali Nagar celebrations in 2024 on its digital pages after the United National Congress (UNC) said a speech by opposition leader Kamla Persad- Bisesar was deliberately omitted.

The UNC on Sunday criticized the coverage of this year’s National Council for Indian Culture (NCIC) Diwali Nagar by a state-run media house after its digital channels were interrupted at the start of Persad-Bisesar’s speech.

TTT Ltd is this year’s official media partner for the nine-night program of events, which ends on 30 October. Persad-Bisesar was one of several speakers at the night’s events, but shortly before she took the stage on Saturday, TTT’s live broadcast of the event was halted and a comment citing technical issues was posted.

“We would like to thank you for your patience as our technical team works to resume live streaming of tonight’s Divali Nagar program as soon as possible. We appreciate your understanding and will keep you updated on our progress,” the statement said.

The opposition leader’s speech was streamed on her own page as well as UNC’s social media, while the TTT tape was cut.

In a release yesterday, UNC called the suspension of coverage “unusual, unfortunate and unfortunate,” and UNC chairman Davendranath Tanku called on TTT to rebroadcast the full speech on its platforms with appropriate advertising.

And in a media release yesterday, UNC Couva South MP Rudranath Indarsingh said TTT chief executive Adrian Winter must reassure the country that the media company has not been “reduced to a classless political football”. He said the technical problem that affected Persad-Bissessar’s speech had compromised the public relations agenda of Diwali Nagar.

Troubleshooting

However, yesterday TTT acknowledged the failure and expressed regret about it. Noting that the team was checking the feed, she said the company’s ICT team started troubleshooting as soon as it happened and they discovered that the internet connection was not active on the streaming system.

“Further investigations revealed that an offline auto-update occurred during the broadcast, resulting in a connection failure,” it added.

It is said that the system has been restored to its previous state and network functionality has been successfully restored.

“These events took place between 8:26 a.m. in the evening and 9:23 p.m., when our main control group resumed live streaming. Our technical team continued to work until the morning of 27 October 2024, where a comprehensive review of our ICT systems was carried out to ensure that similar failures do not occur again. TTT Ltd sincerely regrets this issue and has officially reported it to NCIC.

“TTT is actively working with NCIC to improve service resiliency by establishing additional communication and all automatic system updates have been disabled. To solve this problem we will publish the full continuous video from 26 October 2024 on our social media pages and web page – https://divalinagar2024.ttt.live.’ he added.

On Sunday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office for Communications Simon de Nobriga said he had been made aware of the problem and noted that TTT had indicated in a live broadcast that they were working to resolve the issue before restoration. .

“It doesn’t surprise me that they will take any opportunity to create a conspiracy theory. As far as I know, the agreement is between TTT and NCIC and that arrangement and relationship has been good and positive,” he said on Sunday.

Hossein: TTT should not be politicized

Meanwhile, Barataria/San Juan Member of Parliament Saddam Hossein yesterday called for TTT to be separated from its alleged political ties and described the technical difficulties experienced during the broadcast as “mysterious”.

He said many still question whether the disruption was politically motivated.

“TTT cannot be tied to political threads that are running in the background. The TTT should be able to function independently, impartially and free from political pressure… This whole fiasco reeks of bias and behind-the-scenes political machinations,” he said.

According to him, as a state enterprise, TTT is financed from budget allocations for the Office of the Prime Minister. For the 2025 fiscal year, TTT has been allocated $20.25 million for its operations, he said.

However, he said TTT had been broadcasting major political meetings and rallies organized by the People’s National Movement (PNM).

During the 2023 Standing Finance Committee meeting, he said the opposition had asked the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) whether TTT collected funds from the PNM for a political broadcast broadcast in the 2022 financial year. In a letter dated October 31, 2022, he said OPM responded and confirmed that the TTT covered six (major PNM policy meetings, which include:

• November 2021 – Broadcast PNM (THA takes care of PNM)

• November/December 2021 – Broadcast PNM

• December 2021 – PNM Tobago meeting

• April 2022 – Diego Martin PNM meeting

• August 2022 – Belmont PNM meeting

• September 2022 – PNM Mt Hope meeting

“Express” shared the OPM’s response with a list of these broadcasts. It further states that as of that date (October 31, 2022), no payments have been made to TTT for any political broadcasts.

“Now the question arises why PNM does not pay for political broadcasting, and the eight-minute address of the opposition leader was not broadcast. TTT should not become a victim of the PNM political hostage,” Hossein said.