image: flickr/USB

A a not-for-profit organization is proposing to the CRTC that it, instead of Videotron, should manage community TV in Montreal. Videotron is one of Canada’s four big cable and telecommunications companies. The Steering Committee for an Independent Community TV Channel (ICTV) for Montreal says that Videotron’s existing MAtv-branded ‘community channel’ fails to meet the conditions of its CRTC licence to “reflect the official languages, ethnic and Aboriginal composition of the community.”  The group’s complaint also argues that MAtv airs no programs made by the general public, and offers virtually no training in media production skills to the public.

Cable companies that manage community channels are expected to devote at least 45% of the air time and the programming budget toward “access” programming, which the CRTC defines as programming made by citizens, community members, and “volunteers”.  Videotron told the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) on October 1st that they commission programming—that is pay producers—to produce their ‘access’ content.

The hornet’s nest began in the fall when Videotron applied to the CRTC to spend an additional $6-10 million for an exclusively Anglophone “community channel” to be called MYtv, a clone of the existing exclusively French MAtv.  Videotron wants approval to take this money out of the Canada Media Fund, which independent producers across Canada can tap into to produce programs like Murdoch Mysteries, Rookie Blue, and the Listener.

“It’s like rewarding Videotron for failing to serve Montreal’s minorities over the last decade,” says Gretchen King, who is secretary of the board of McGill University’s community radio station, CKUT, as well as being a member of the Steering Committee for ICTV Montreal. “The $6-10 million that Videotron is already spending on MAtv is more than enough to fund a dynamic multicultural community channel that would reflect all the energy and creativity of this fantastic city. That’s what community TV is supposed to do.” 

“If Videotron is not willing to represent minority groups and to accurately reflect our city, then another group should administer this licence,” argues Laith Marouf, former Executive Director of Concordia University TV and Equity Commissioner for the National Community Radio Association. “CRTC policy allows for this. This is why we have applied to run the channel using a superior model for community TV in Montreal, which would bring communities together, not divide them. That’s what community media is supposed to do. Videotron’s model of offering two separate ‘products’ for different categories of consumers to view rather than offering Montrealers a participative process is a commercial production model, not a community one”.

Videotron is not the only Canadian cable company that has been struggling to honour the local and citizen-driven mandate of community television in Canada. Once upon a time, there were more than 50 cable companies in Canada, which administered nearly 300 community production facilities. Most towns with a population of 10,000 people or more had a community channel, as well as many smaller communities. In big cities like Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal, there were as many as a dozen neighbourhood offices where volunteers and community organizations could learn about the then “new media” of the day (TV), and borrow equipment to tell their own stories.

Eighty percent of Canadians subscribed to cable, so cable community channels functioned as a virtual townhall where citizens could watch municipal council meetings gavel to gavel, and particpate directly in local debates via studio audiences and phone-in programming.

The cable industry was different in several key respects during the 1980s and 1990s. They were smaller and easier for the CRTC to police… “mom and pop” operations that were headquartered in the communities they served. It mattered to their owners that local content was available. Cable licences themselves were monopolies within the service area. Most relatively benevolently opened their doors for the community to produce what it wanted.

CRTC policy has always stipulated that a set percentage of cable company revenues should be spent on community programming.  In smaller communities where there weren’t many subscribers, this percentage amounted to only a few thousand dollars… not enough to operate a studio and pay a full-time staff person.  To get around the budgetary limitation, cable companies would colocate the production facility with its cable business office and “head end”: the microwave reception booth from which the cable coax radiated out to the community, carrying the programming.  The person that installed your cable might have been the same guy that showed you how to shoot your local hockey game.

All this has changed. Cable companies no longer need “head ends” in smaller communities. As Canada’s big five cable companies (Rogers, Shaw, Videotron, Cogeco and Eastlink) have bought out the erstwhile “mom and pop” operations , they have interconnected their cable systems fibreoptically, eliminating the need for a local presence.  Most of the production facilities in small communities have closed, along with the former “head ends” and business offices.  Rather than giving the few thousand dollars generated from revenues collected in these areas to another local organization to facilitate community programming (such as a library or high school media program, which could have leveraged the small budget in the same way the cable company formerly did), cable companies have “zoned” community channels. in the past, the CRTC required that 60% of the program schedule be local to the licence area, but now cable companies are allowed to meet this 60% “local” test over increasingly wide areas. In the case of Videotron, for example, half the population of Quebec lives within the Greater Montreal ‘zone’ that is the subject of the current licence application.

The other factor that has changed for the cable industry is the newly competitive environment of satellite television.  In the late 1990s, when the first DTH (direct-to-home) services launched, cable companies were looking for ways to keep their customers.  Since the community channel was the only channel that cable companies could program themselves (CRTC rules subsequently relaxed to allow them to buy broadcasters such as CTV and Global as well as specialty channels such as Discovery or TSN) and since satellite companies didn’t yet have the capacity to carry local channels, they looked to their community channels for a competitive advantage. In their minds, the way to retain subscribers was to make their community channels more professional and to improve content. As a result, programming started to be more and more staff-driven.

The irony is that viewership to cable-administered community channels is abysmally low, according to BBMs published by the CRTC during the community TV policy review in 2010. Viewership to Rogers channels was only 0.2%, and Videotron channels were even lower, at 0.1%. A report submitted to the same hearing by the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec showed that independent, community-owned and -operated channels in Quebec were watched by 60% of residents between 2 and 4 times per week. Cable companies made a strategic error in thinking that a small group of staff could come up with programming that is more engaging and relevant than harnessing the combined creativity and ideas of the whole community. The key is training.  If you can give adequate technical support and feedback, community-generated content will always be more surprising, interesting, and dynamic. With the proliferation of high-quality camcorders and home editing systems, it’s easier now than ever to facilitate great content from the public.

Cable-administered “community channels” also increasingly represent a legacy technology. Canadians need life-long access to digital media skills training and the platforms to get their messages out. Whether it’s a small business wondering how best to leverage Twitter or a not-for-profit that wants to add video to its web site, there need to be community resource centres where people can access the latest tools and reach their communities on all platforms, whether TV, radio, the Interent, or mobile devices. The Canadian Library Association, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage all support CACTUS’ view that digital skills and media access needs to be made available by stable organizations with a long-term stake in communities, like libraries.

In an environment of intense media ownership concentration, it’s also more urgent than ever that citizen and community media be administered by not-for-profit organizations that are not owned by the same cable and satellite companies that own all the conventional channels. “Community media is supposed to be a safety valve, a place of last resort where anyone can be heard. It’s meant to be an antidote to corporate media, not an extension of it”, said Stephane Bertrand, a member of the Steering Committee for an Independent Community TV Channel for Montreal, as well as a board member of the National Community Radio Association. “Look at the success of the broadcasts from Concordia University TV during the Quebec spring. They got 100,000 hits from around the world per day. This year the big issues have been the Quebec Charter of Values and the election.   The community needs a safe place for debate where it can define itself.”

Sabine Friesinger, the spokesperson for ICTV Montreal, agreed, “If you need a reason to wrest control of these channels from cable, look no further than the Quebec election.  Quebecois rejected the vision of a business tycoon that would control both the province’s media empire and its policital process.  Peladeau is at the top of the chain that has a stranglehold on all community TV financing in the province as well.  Quebecor threatened legal action in March if we did not withdraw our criticisms of MAtv from our web and social media sites!  Can you imagine?  This is not community media.”

 

Catherine Edwards is the executive director of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations

image: flickr/USB

 

meagan

Meagan Perry

Meagan Perry began her work in media at the age of 17, broadcasting at her high school’s lunchhour intercom radio station. She then moved on to a decade in community radio, working as news director...