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Support Community Media Now!
The dead-line for public comment for the CRTC public notice of consultation 2009-661 is now closed.
Thank you for everyone who took the time to support the call for a return to community access in our country--and more specifically--to the vision of community media access production and distribution centres in every town, run by communities themselves.
Over 2000 of you supported this message, whether by endorsing the CACTUS campaign letter and requests, or by adding your own comments and experiences where you live.
There may be other ways that you can help and increase the chance that the dream of open access for everyone and in every community can become a reality as we approach the hearings, so stay tuned!
The CACTUS Team
CACTUS Requests Basic Information to Be Made Available to Public about Community TV
Since the notice of the CRTC policy review of the community TV sector was posted on October 22nd, CACTUS has been trying to stimulate genuine debate about the future of the sector that would include input from a broad cross-section of Canadians.
The two major stumbling block have been:
1) The lack of information in the public notice itself. All it says about the current community TV channels on cable is that there are 139 in the country: nothing about where they are, who runs them, nor how much access programming they do.
CACTUS has now submitted six different Access to Information request trying to find out whether the sector is living up to its current policy mandate. The CRTC required cable operators to keep logs of the number of hours of access programming that they do, the titles of the programs, and the names of parties provided access, to enable the Commission to monitor performance. We were therefore surprised that none of this information had been offered in the public notice, but even more surprised when the CRTC informed us that since 1990, it has never once asked cable operators to see this information. We were puzzled, as we had heard anecdotally that various cable companies had been audited over the years for compliance.
Since cable companies are required to keep these logs for 12 months, our latest request to the CRTC is that they ask for these most recent logs to be made available before the hearings, to enabel Canadians to objectively assess whether the goals of the community TV policy as stated in public notice 2009-661 are being met. We are still waiting to hear.
CACTUS Weights In on Fee for Carriage and the Digital Transition
CACTUS participated in both hearings regarding the value-for-signal hearings (both the CRTC's own deliberations in November as well as the government-ordered collection of Canadian public feedback that occurred in December).
We had three messages:
1) We supported the principal of broadcasting distribution undertakings (cable, satellite, your phone company) compensating over-the-air broadcasters for their content. (Up until now, cable companies like Rogers and Shaw pay specialty channels such as Discovery and US channels like PBS for the right to include them in cable service tiers, but not Canadian over-the-air channels such as CTV or the CBC.) We supported this concept provided that over-the-air community TV channels are included. The rationale for paying for Canadian over-the-air services is to help finance local content. Since the community sector is cabable of generating more volume of local content than any other, it is logical and fair.
2) We proposed that there by reserved and protected over-the-air frequencies for community use through the transition to digital. The community sector currently is not being taken into account in the digital allotment plan and may not be able to get on air in larger urban areas without specific set-asides.
3) Since the community sector is interested to acquire transmission equipment that might fall into disuse if public and private sector broadcasters pull out of smaller communities after the transition to digital, we proposed that community license-holders could continue to maintain transmitters for remote signals from the public and private sectors so that these communities can continue to receive free over-the-air TV. Many smaller communities across the country already offer this service to residents.
Click here for the transcript the Nov. 25th CACTUS presentation.
Welcome IMAA Members
Welcome IMAA Members,
Thanks for visiting our site!
If you are interested to submit an intervention or comment to the CRTC review of the community television sector, please contact CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards at (819) 772-2862 or at cedwards at timescape dot ca.
We can provide you with samples appropriate to your level of interest.
CACTUS Gets Press in MediaCaster and TechMedia Reports
The CRTC public notice has been posted for the community television review. You can read it at:
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-661.htm
As with most policy reviews, the Commission poses specific questions. We will be posting an analysis of what the questions mean this week and next, as it's not always obvious, even if you are familiar with previous hearings and the minutiae of CRTC policy.
In the mean time, the press for the hearings has begun. CACTUS was quoted in both MediaCaster last week at:
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?aid=1000345465&PC=
and (incorrectly) by TechMedia Report at:
http://www.techmediareports.ca/reports/content/10001-municipalities_should_have_a_bigger_say_in_how_community_channels_are_managed_cactus
(CACTUS spokesperson, Cathy Edwards, did not in fact propose that boards of independent community TV channels should be appointed by municipalities or locally elected officials, although municipality representation and support will be important.)
If you have press contacts that could give exposure to CACTUS' proposals for a revitalized independent community television sector, please contact us (see the About page). We need to encourage as many individual Canadians and community organizations that have used community channels to publicize their activities and events to intervene with their views at the hearings.
Thanks!
