St. Maarten Private Eye

I have a few important questions to ask. I cannot seem to get anyone to answer the questions and it seems to me there are lot of circumstances and possibly coincidences that are still as yet unanswered.

Fact: Glen Carty has a lot of communications interests on this island, but he does NOT have a TV station license. He does have a shiny new television broadcast facility in Madame Estate and has let people know he will soon have his license.

There is only one problem with this: Curacao placed a moratorium on TV station licenses and that still stands.

So where is Mr. Carty going to get his license from?

Remember Mr. Alvin Obersi has his wireless TV licence (Scarlet) and is seeking to expand his license restrictions, but ExCo can't be bothered to turn up to discuss his application, so there is no quorum. Obsersi sold Glen his original UTS concession. Now it may be a coincidence that the Director of Telecommunicatie en Post Mr. J.D. Canha is Alvin's brother-in-law and the Bureau rents from Alvin in his just opened building in Harbour View.

Now Mr. Carty is very close to Mr. Obersi, and of course Mr. de Canha is close to Alvin. Now what can Mr. Canha do to help out his brother-in-law's friend? Well he has no more licenses to give away, so one of the existing TV stations have to lose theirs first.

So Mr. de Canha steps up enforcement and compliance on local underfunded community TV stations, and of course if he shuts down one of the local stations for any minor infraction, then a new license is back on the market. And of course Mr. Obersi''s friend Glen Carty has the final piece of the puzzle (studio ready and waiting) so he can get up and running overnight.

People, if we allow these small operators to be squeezed out then Carty will take over. These struggling little stations have to be content with having their signal stuck at the other end of SXMCTV's spectrum e.g. SXMTV6 is supposed to be on 6, but they put it at 58; 3CSTV7 is put on 45. Noowhere in the world does this happen except SXM. Now Mr. Obersi's Wireless TV Network (which is just rebroadcasting US programming illegally), has been allocated Channel 6!!!! Now is it any wonder local advertisers don't want to give ads to them when they can never be found.

Now SXMCTV starts a quality campaign against the smaller stations and it becomes a mess. Claims and counter claims, but at the end of the day the Bureau only see problems and these are more grounds to take away a license. Who will it be, someone has to go, because I cannot accept a bright man like Carty is going to invest in something he knows is unachievable.

Enter Mr. Carty with this brand new shiny TV station---all it needs is a license. Do our readers think that the rumor is running around that he will soon have his license, is true.

We will just have to wait and see.

To Flipper: I know we have named companies and individuals here, but in all fairness they are public figures who seek public attention, and the information on television stations is also public record. I am simply asking questions why a man is bothering building a TV station when he knows full well none are available. Does he know something we don't know?

Does anyone know about this?

Or am I going to be lone voice in the wilderness until you see I was right?

It's your TV network, take an interest in it. Carty knows what these licences are really worth as a business, but the license is just 3500NAf. Don't let the little guys be pushed out of this as well.

I will have more to say about this, and would appreciate any comments on this matter,

SXMObserver