CACTUS asks BTLR for $150M community TV framework

A group representing the Canadian community TV sector is asking the panel reviewing the broadcasting and telecom acts to beef up focus on community TV at the CRTC and Canadian Heritage and create a new secretariat and ombudsperson’s office, along with a new funding framework for the sector. The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) said leaving administration of the sector “under the stewardship of private corporations answerable to shareholders, with policy reviews only every 6-10 years has been irresponsible. It is only intermittent management, of a ‘drop-in’ nature, with scant follow-up or monitoring.” It suggested new CRTC and Heritage staff be a part of the proposed Community Media Secretariat, which would include representatives from community TV-focused organizations like CACTUS, the public library sector, and “other federal government departments whose mandates are enhanced by community media.” The secretariat’s responsibilities would include a focus on rebuilding “awareness and infrastructure for community media in Canada,” while the new ombudsman would receive and settle complains about broadcasting matters, including community TV. CACTUS also asked for the sector to be allocated between $100 million and $150 million a year, to come from Canadian TV providers and internet service providers and foreign companies that offer subscription-based audio-visual services in Canada. Alternatively, it suggested the money could come from a combination of fees -- charged by municipalities to cable companies in exchange for access to public rights of way -- and parliamentary allocations. The CRTC last reviewed its community TV policy in 2016. It decided to allow TV providers to move some funding from community TV to support local stations, in a move CACTUS and other organizations said at the time would harm the sector. Cathy Edwards, the executive director of CACTUS, said in an email that the $150 million figure is how much TV providers spent on community TV prior to the 2016 decision. “Now, with the latitude given to BDUs to redirect this money to their private news stations (the amounts of which are not publicly available), we estimate the amount spent on BDU community channels is less than $65 million,” she said. Edwards noted the group doesn’t want to see any of that money go to TV-provider-operated community channels, but instead to “community-owned not-for-profit corporations creating and distributing content on all digital platforms, not just one legacy medium on one platform.” In its submission, CACTUS outlined its vision for where the community TV sector should go in the future to keep up with changes in how people make and consume content, saying there should be at least 300 community media centres -- potentially hosted in local libraries -- across the country that offer training in new audio-visual media, including virtual and augmented reality. “It has been become clear to CACTUS that while ‘TV’ may no longer be a new medium, the pace of change in new media technology is such that there must be places in communities where individuals and social service organizations can congregate to learn to apply these new technologies together, to solve the common problems we all face, whether it is truth and reconciliation with our First Nations, climate change, how to run your own business, or how to better use local municipal resources.” — With reporting by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca

CACTUS asks BTLR for $150M community TV framework

Broadcast | February 22, 2019

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CACTUS asks BTLR for $150M community TV framework

Broadcast | February 22, 2019

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