Hi Friends,
The letter below was published in the Straits Times Forum page (22.1.10) ( albeit in a truncated version).
The letter:
Dear Editor,
The Media Development Authority (MDA) should take decisive action now to ensure that key World Cup 2010 matches, including Opening match, semi-finals and final matches are telecast over the free-to-air channels, regardless of what cable content providers do for the following reasons:
1. MDA collects license fee of $110 per year from each household with a television set and the paying public expects MDA to telecast content which the public deems as basic infotainment. With increased affluence, these key World Cup matches would easily qualify as a must-have item in any given menu just as key events in the recent Olympic games were.
2. There are still many households in Singapore who cannot afford cable subscriptions. Hence MDA should never abrogate its basic responsibilities to cable content providers such as Starhub or Singtel. Of course, if these cable providers had bought the rights (which they had not) and wanted to telecast all the matches to cater to die-hard football fans, they are just meeting their commercial obligations.
It is time MDA or other relevant government bodies step in to do the right thing.
The public expects no less!
Dr Huang Shoou Chyuan
