No Carnival Tuesday Parade Of The Bands | Trinidad 2013

This is an absolute disgrace! What a shame it is that the Carnival that is promoted as the "Greatest Street Parade on Planet Earth" will not be seen on television in Trinidad and Tobago or streamed live via the Internet. These are the people who say that they want to promote the culture to the World so that people will see and be influenced to come and be a part of the festivities the following year.  This is an epic blunder by everyone involved. 

It is typical of petty dealings that take place in Trinidad and Tobago. These people had an entire year to plan and make the right decision that would promote this festival. I guess anytime is Trinidad time and these 'so called' smart people could not agree on fees to charge/pay to broadcast the event. Everyone lost and the culture took the hardest hit. The NCBA (National Carnival Bands Association) did not care because they got paid by the masqueraders for the costumes (a lot made in China cheaply and sold at ridiculously expensive prices). They decide to hold out to get what they wanted and in the end got nothing!

No one wins; we are all losers because these people lacked foresight. The government must get these parties together and demand that all contracts are finalized before January of the following year. The government provides sponsorship in millions of dollars for Carnival and should have a say with the promotion of this cultural event. 

The following article appeared in today's Trinidad Express Newspaper 02/12/2013: "T&T Carnival not on world wide web: 'halt' to Parade of Bands"
The Carnival parade is not being streamed on the world wide web by any local media, not even by State-owned CNMG. The National Carnival Bands Association (NCBA) yesterday moved to block the station from streaming the Parade of the Bands, without approval and without paying up, TV6 news reported last night.

The station was on the brink of streaming yesterday's parade when it was stopped by the NCBA, the TV6 report said. CNMG's chief executive officer Ken Ali told TV6 that the NCBA was never keen on the idea, but the station attempted to go ahead anyhow, given the tremendous negative comments it was getting on its website.

However, he said a top NCBA official went to the station's broadcast truck yesterday and put a stop to the plan, pointing out the station had no legal rights to broadcast the Carnival parade on the Internet. NCBA chairman David Lopez had a different explanation. He said that C-TV did not negotiate streaming rights in its package deal for coverage of Carnival events.

He said when the Association found out that C-TV had given the instruction to go ahead with streaming, he intervened and blocked the move. Lopez said the situation with C-TV needed to come to a head as, last year, they failed to live up to their agreement to provide the NCBA with a clean-feed and, two years ago, the web broadcast crashed.

He said that, for this year's Carnival, no one has streaming rights except NCBATT.COM  which achieved that, by contracting a private production house. Meanwhile, the NCBA is grappling with another challenge, policing what it sees as rights violations through publication on social media. Lopez says that some outfits have obtained clearance to post on Carnival images. With regard to postings on Facebook and Twitter — he said that's the real challenge.

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