Television Jamaica (TVJ) will not air the carnival road march live, for the first time in over a decade, whilst rival CVM TV will make its decision this week, amidst fears of violating Broadcast Commission directives.
This soca sacrifice will cost the stations a lot of advertising revenue but avoid costly penalties and public criticism.
CVM TV will by Friday decide whether to air the march live. "We are in serious discussions at the moment about whether we can have a live broadcast of the road march because the Broadcasting Commission has made it clear and we have to be careful about body gyrations," noted Ronnie Sutherland CVM marketing manager. "We might not be able to run it based on the guidelines."
Under new guidelines issued last month stations must "halt ... the transmission of any live presentation, audio recording or music video from the soca, hip hop or any other music genre, which promotes, contains references to, or is otherwise suggestive of, 'daggering' or which publicly displays, simulates or instructs about explicit sexual activities or positions..."
The Commission included soca music in its ban on the prohibition of lewd dancehall songs. The soca ban followed public cries of hypocrisy in ignoring similar activities in other musical forms.