CACTUS and Community TV in the News
On April 30th, CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards, Colette Watson of Rogers, and Tony Vidal, on over-the-air community television operator from Leamington, Ontario were interviewed on "The Current"
CBC radio national.
On April 9, the Telecom Blog posted a story about the CRTC audits of community channels entitled Community Channels “Abused” by Cable Companies
On March 9, an article about the over-the-air community TV channel in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, appeared in the St. Croix Courier (reproduced with the Courier's permission).
On March 2, CACTUS was quoted by the Wire Report commenting on the Corus application for Local1.
On February 22, 2010, Vancouver Co-op Radio interviewed CACTUS about the need for community control of community broadcasting.
On January 29, 2010, Rabble.ca published on OpEd by CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards with an overview aimed at the general public about the decline of community TV in Canada.
On January 27, 2010, CFOB in Fort Frances Ontario interviewed CACTUS about station closures and the lack of access in many smaller communities that once had active community channels, including Fort Frances (now a Shaw system).
On January 26, 2010, The Georgia Straight and The Tyee published articles by Steve Andersen of Open Media about the suppression of the CRTC's own commissioned report about community TV in other countries (under pressure from Canada's largest cable operators), as well as about the annual spending and financials of Canada's cable companies and how they spend the community TV levy.
On January 25, 2010, the Winnipeg Free Press carried an op-ed from CACTUS arguing that communities should be granted control over community cable channels
On January 22, 2010 the Canadian Community Newspapers Association (CCNA) posted a story describing small towns' loss of access to cable community television here
On January 21, 2010 CACTUS issued a Canada News Wire release explaining how Canadians can respond to the CRTC's call for comments on community TV by the February 1, 2010 deadline, available here
On January 22, The Wire Report (subscription only) published a story about CACTUS proposal to reduce costs for communities to launch local media spaces here
On January 14, 2010, Mediacaster magazine covered CACTUS' concern about the CRTC's important community TV policy review and the lack of CRTC publicity about the review
On January 13, 2010, Broadcaster magazine wrote about CACTUS' concern that the lack of information from the CRTC about the current state of community TV in Canada will make it difficult for Canadians to assess whether the CRTC's current community TV Policy has achieved its objectives
On December 22, 2009, CACTUS supporter Sid Tan was interviewed for
CBC's "On the Coast" program about access in Vancouver.
On December 20, 2009, Groundwire interviewed CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards at length about the CACTUS proposal for multi-platform access production and distribution centres, which could include radio. Groundwire programming is shared among more than 30 community radio channels country-wide.
On December 10, 2009, Global National did a story about the CRTC hearings into local television and the fee-for-carriage issue. CACTUS spokesperson Cathy Edwards was featured talking about the increase in over-the-air TV viewers.
On December 8, 2009, Mediacaster highlighted the CACTUS proposal to the CRTC for providing community content and maintaining over-the-air service of Canada's major TV stations, without imposing new costs on consumers
On November 29, 2009, the Georgia Strait covered Metro Vancouver's planned CRTC submission denouncing Shaw Communications' administration of community TV in Vancouver.
On November 27, 2009, Medicaster covered CACTUS' presentation to the CRTC on November 25, 2009, in which CACTUS proposed a no-new-cost way to maintain, support and increase local programming
On October 26, 2009 Mediacaster quoted CACTUS regarding the $100 million annually that cable companies are mandated to use for community channels in local community, in the context of the CRTC's announcement that it will review its community
TV policy in spring 2010
On September 14, 2009 CBC New Brunswick ran the following segment on the New Brunswick community channel closures
