I got an email this evening from one of the best guests we ever had on the show, TV producer Cathy Edwards.
Since I have no small amount of affection for the old days of community TV ( dating back to a couple of quirky mid-1980's Videon productions I produced and hosted), I felt Cathy's cause- the survival of volunteer TV as a condition of the licence for cable companies to operate- deserved further dissemination.
(If you want any of the attachments she mentions email talk@kick.fm and I'll send them along)
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Dear Friends of Community TV,
Shaw and Videotron are requesting license renewals in all their systems for another 5 years. Dead-lines for submitting opposition to their renewal (as simple as clicking and filling out an on-line form at the link below)are due by June 5th.
Since providing a community television service that provides access to the community to air time, production assistance, training, and equipment is part of their license obligations, now is the only time in five years when you have a chance to influence how your community channel is run.
The CRTC hearing notice for all the renewals is below:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2008/pb2008-38.htm .
To read the full application and supporting documents for your city, download the relevant zip file. When it expands, you'll find inside a main license application and 8-10 supporting documents. One supporting document in each folder is about community TV.
To cut to the chase, I've attached the relevant files to this message, in which Shaw details what it's doing for community TV in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Calgary. In each case, they claim:
- they are doing more than 50% of "access" programming per programming week (they define "access" as anytime they cover a community event, not when someone from the community actually produces and has control over content... this is in direct violation of CRTC policy).
- they are training volunteers. Most Shaw systems now use a few students from broadcast schools only, which is what they base their claims upon.
- they are advertising for volunteers and programming ideas. They claim that they advertise but get no response from the community.
So, for those of you living in these cities and others who know that these claims are not true, please write in with your comments, by clicking the link at the top of the CRTC policy document linked above.
If you would like to read the current policy regarding community programming, you can find it at this link:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/archive/ENG/Notices/2002/pb2002-61.htm .
You may find it useful to quote particular parts that you feel are not
being met in your community.
And last, I am attaching a document called CRTC_PN_2008-38.pdf, which is a copy of a letter of intervention being filed by the Community Media Education Society in Vancouver, which is a group of disgruntled ex-Shaw and ex-Rogers volunteers. You may like to use some ideas in your letter, although it's more effective if you can modify it and add your own thoughts.
A particularly clever strategy in the CMES letter is to say that they have no objection to Shaw having the cable license, if they would only give up control of the cable levy money that is supposed to be spent on community access programming. This is the long-term goal of CACTUS-- to create an independent pool of money that would be administered directly by the community to producing access programming, outside cable company control.
For more ideas, I will have drafted my own intervention and will forward it to you tomorrow night.
Please take this opportunity to say what you think!
Cathy Edwards and Michael Lithgow
CACTUS (The Canadian Association of Community TV Users and Stations)
(613) 447-7720
