1424 Commercial Drive, PO Box #21674 Vancouver,

8/14/2019 1424 Commercial Drive, PO Box #21674 Vancouver,

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1424 Commercial Drive, PO Box #21674Vancouver, BC, Canada

V5L 5G3

CRTCSecretary General of the Commission

Ottawa, Ontario

K1A 0N2

February 1, 2010

Review of community television policy framework, Broadcasting Notice of Consultation CRTC 2009-

661 (Ottawa, 22 October 2009)

1 We would like to appear at the public hearings.

2 We thank the CRTC for the opportunity to address these proceedings. A review of communitychannel policy within the Canadian broadcasting system is long overdue both in terms ofregulatory effectiveness and changing patterns of cultural participation brought about in part

through new media technologies.

3 OpenMedia.ca is a national network of organizations that represent nearly 700,000 people acrossCanada who want a diverse and democratic media system.

Introductory Remarks - Community Television as a Public Trust

4 Cable operators have been required as a condition of their licensingfrom the 1970s forward tocontribute financially to the creation and presentation of Canadian programming. As theCommission is aware, this obligation takes the form of a cable levy against gross cable

subscription revenues.

5 In recognition of the importance of citizen participation through local reflection within thebroadcasting system and the inability of the public and private elements to ensure its pride ofplace alongside conventional programming, 2/5 of the cable levy from the larger cable licensees

can be allocated in the form of a community access channel. The community media element inthe broadcasting system is the only element intended to facilitate public expression independent

of market limitations (for example, the presence of rural v. urban interests, ethnic and aboriginal

representation, diversity of points of view, etc.).


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6 Should a cable company elect to allocate cable levy funds to a community channel, in essencethey elect to act on behalf of the Canadian public with respect to the monies collected to meet

CRTC local reflection policy objectives. In other words, the community channel is like a publictrust, and those who would take on this responsibility (to manage community channel resources

on behalf of the Canadian public) should be held to high standards.

7 In that the community channel is to some degree a public trust, there must be full public

disclosure of the monies collected and spent in its operation. Such disclosure should beretroactive to at least 2002 when the public interest framework for the operation of the channelwas reintroduced in Broadcasting Public Notice CRTC 2002-61.

8 The history of community channel policy in Canada demonstrates a long-standing commitment

on the part of Parliament and the CRTC to ensure that Canadians have significant opportunities toparticipate in Canadian culture through the broadcasting system. This concern encompasses both

the production of cultural expression, especially that which reflects local concerns and interests,and also the availability within the broadcast system to the kinds of cultural experiences and

expression that local reflection can provide. Throughout the history of community channel

policy, the CRTC has not wavered in its understanding of the vital link between the well-being ofcommunities in Canada and the ability of citizens to address issues of public concern throughmass media.

9 What the community channel has historically provided is a way for Canadians to generate and

view cultural expressions which complementcommercial programming rather than duplicate it.

The CRTC has acknowledged for more than 30 years that the public and private elements of thebroadcasting system - while excellent, informative and entertaining - do not on their ownadequately reflect the diversity of Canadian experience nor allow for the full range of issues of

public concern. The community channel has been a vital means for communities to address

matters of local public concern concerns that otherwise would not have been expressed.

10 In this regard, we would like to direct your attention to Appendix A, Communicating CommunityCapital: A Framework for Evaluating the Role of Local Television, a study prepared for

OpenMedia.ca of how community television impacts local communities. Local expressionthrough community programming has played an under-appreciated and yet highly significant role

in community life in matters such as:

+ the preservation of local history

+ community building through the expansion of physical, financial and ecological capital

+ future planning+ problem solving and conflict resolution

+ skills development+ linguistic and cultural preservation

+ events listings and local market exchange+ entertainment reflective of local settings and cultural experiences

11 Community-owned and operated local television continues to play a vital role in the communitieswhere it is allowed to flourish.

12 Central to our position in these hearings is the observation that the failings of existing communitytelevision policies can most readily be addressed by the independent management of community

channel resources.


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13 By independent, we mean managementof community programming resources independent andarms length from the cable companies who cannot realistically be expected to fulfill their

obligations to investors in complicated and rapidly changing markets while simultaneouslycarrying out the trust-like obligations imposed by community media policy goals and objectives.

14 In fact, it is the failure of the cable companies to negotiate the competing authorities of marketexigencies as against the public interest goals and objectives of community channel policy that

has so limited and, as others have suggested, crippled the community element of the broadcastingsystem.

Burden of Proof and the Experience of Ordinary Canadians

15 Since 1997, and the introduction of the failed regulation that allowed cable companies unfettered

control over the community channel and which resulted in the decimation of volunteer networksacross the country; and since 2002, with the reintroduction of a public interest framework for the

community channel, there hve been widespread complaints to the effect that cable companies do

not honour the goals and objectives for community access television.

16 One of the difficulties that the public faces in public hearings regarding the broadcasting system

is lack of resources and expertise. The public by definition is scattered, decentralized andunorganized. It lacks the organizational and more particularly monetary resources to monitor a

$100 million sector of the Canadian broadcasting system.

17 Indeed, we can see the importance of centralized organization and funding to submission numbersreflected in the thoughtful responses on behalf of independent community access channels in

Quebec who do receive direct financial support from BDU contributions. And yet, the kinds of

community channels these letters support are substantively different from those operated by cablecompanies in that they set out to and meet the access and participation objectives of the

regulations.

18 The present hearings raise questions such as whether or not and the degree to which communitychannel objectives are ignored; the degree to which volunteer access has been limited or

eliminated in regions across the country; the absence of notices in cable billing inserts indicatingvolunteer and training opportunities as required under the regulations; the extent to whichapplications for air-time by independent producers are denied in violation of the regulations; the

degree to which community channel resources are not shared with the community.

19 The Canadian public does not even have access to the program logs from the cable company

community channels even though the cable companies are required to keep this information, theCRTC has the authority to request it, and the public has asked that the CRTC make this request -

to no avail.

20 We refer the Commission to our letter dated January 20, 2010 wherein we requested theprogramming logs and to which we did not receive a reply. It is our understanding that othergroups have also unsuccessfully requested this information.

21 Neither does the public have access to the accounting records for how community channel moniesare being spent. Even the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage had trouble getting the

cable companies to reveal this information for their study Our Cultural Sovereignty.


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22 Despite these profound informational, resource and expertise limitations, the burden of proof forhow well the cable companies are complying with the letter and spirit of community channel

regulation is placed on the Canadian public.

23 We ask that the Commission take this into account not only in terms of future policy

considerations in the community sector where competing interests pit an unorganized and under-resourced public against the lawyers for some of the largest companies in the nation but in

terms of testimony and submissions. The testimony of ordinary Canadians, individuals andcommunity groups about community programming and cable operator diligence should bereceived in light of this profoundly unfair position that the Canadian public finds itself in.

Part I (a) and (b): Regulatory Objectives and Community Channel Roles

24 Q1. The current objectives are not being met in letter or spirit by the cable company managed

community channels according to the testimony of Canadians from across Canada.

25 Specifically, the cable companies fail to meet these objectives and the roles set out for the

community channel as follows:

+ by failing to foster and encourage a diversity of voices and alternative points of view and ways

of expression, and failing to foster and encourage public participation

+ by diminishing and in many instances eliminating volunteer opportunities

+ by failing to actively promote training programs or to provide training

+ by failing to seek out alternative views or to encourage and support programming that reflects

the cultural diversity of Canadian society including economic differences, ethnic diversity, andsexual orientations

+ by failing to publicize program schedules for independently produced community programming

We refer the Commission to complaints received since the implementation of 2002-61, and in this

hearing submissions from CACTUS, ACCESS-TV, EMTSET PRODUCTIONS, and thethousands of submissions from ordinary Canadians who believe that the community channelresources are not being properly managed.

26 Q2. We recommend first and foremost that community channel resources be allocated to one ormore community representative non-profit organizations who operate at arms length from the

cable operators in order to ensure that the primary management goal of community programmingoperations is to meet the goals and objectives of community channel policies in as efficient a

manner as possible. We support the submission by CACTUS in regards to the funding of anindependent not-for-profit community programming organization.

27 Second, we recommend strict financial accountability and transparency in every instance ofcommunity channel spending, including the public availability of programming logs, applications

for air-time by independent producers, publicly available criteria for denying air-time, volunteer

training opportunities.


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28 Third, we recommend the creation of a community programming ombudsperson office, a position

that would oversee complaints in the community channel sector - a public interest element of thebroadcasting system worth over $100 million annually. An ombudsperson office of community

programming could be established and run with as little as 1% or less of current communitychannel resource allocations.

29 Q3. Existing objectives for the community television framework are acceptable if thoseresponsible for carrying them out sincerely strive to do so in good faith. We do however

recommend that the objectives expressly articulate a high standard of accountability, somethinglike fiduciary responsibility on the part of those entrusted to manage community channelresources on behalf of the Canadian public.

30 Q4. The primary difference between local programming from conventional broadcasters and

community programming is in its origination. Community programming originates (1) throughentities whose production and distribution efforts are made on a not-for-profit basis; (2) through

organizations who are independently constituted and representative of the community whereinprogramming originates, and (3) where there is substantive community participation in the

organizations operations, especially (but not exclusively) in production.

31 Q5. The roles and objectives as set out continue for the most part to be appropriate. The problemremains a lack of good faith willingness on the part of cable companies to meet these objectives.

In this regard we have three recommendations:

(i) That community channel resource management be structured in such a way that

those responsible for the resources are structurally independent of cable operatorsand widely representative of the community.

(ii) That there be real accountability and transparency for how hundreds of millions

of dollars of public money are being spent in achieving these roles and objectives.

(iii) That we support the submission of CACTUS, the Canadian Association ofCommunity Television Groups and Users. In a time of changing technologies

and patterns of citizen participation in culture, we recommend that theCommission consider the CACTUS proposal for using community channel

resources to establish community media community resource centers akin to locallibraries but with the emphasis on cultural production and distribution. We returnto this recommendation below under part IV.

Part I (c): Community-based television services

32 Q7. It is important to recognize the difference between uptake in organizational form, and

uptake on the part of communities through citizens and independent producers. It is ourunderstanding that communities have been clamoring for opportunities to participate in

community programming through independent producers and volunteers but lack theopportunities to participate, access to production resources, and access to air-time. There is nomodesty in this uptake, but rather a restriction on their ability to participate.

33 In terms of why so few organizations have applied to become independent community-basedtelevision services, the CRTC must first look to its decision to deny the one application it has

received by independent community group to do so and the ways in which this might create an


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atmosphere of discouragement. We direct the Commissions attention to their decision in CRTC

2008-19 denying Community Media Education Societys application to provide communityprogramming services for Telus.

34 The Commission should consider two key aspects in determining why the public havent applied

on more than four occasions for a community license under the new framework: (i) skills and

capacities; and (ii) financial resources.

35 To apply for a community-based television service would require capacities and skills and trustand collaborative determination to create and operate a community television station. Where, theCommission should ask, would members of the public by definition who are not professionals

in the field - get these skills?

36 The answer to this question goes to the heart of why community television remains relevant in amuch transformed new media context. One of the great strengths of a community television

sector that encourages and facilitates widespread public participation and one of the asignificant differences between community channel production and online opportunities such as

Youtube - is the way in which community channel production facilitates and encourages social

and community growth. We refer you again to the report in Appendix A. Community channelproduction brings togethergroups of people into collaborative production processes. Thesegroups have access to otherwise prohibitively costly facilities: studios, sets, lighting, sound

technologies, sound proofing, mobile studios. These resources open opportunities forprogramming: live broadcasting, daily news shows, dramatic television, etc. The Internet does

not replace the kinds of mentorship, education, and community service experiences or sense of

place that is engendered through collaborative community production.

37 Under stewardship of the cable companies, according to the testimony of Canadians dating back

to 2002, these diverse opportunities and potentials for community growth have been diminished

or eliminated altogether. We also refer the Commission to the submissions in these hearingsincluding CACTUS, ACCESS-TV, EMTSET PRODUCTIONS and the thousands of individual

submissions from ordinary Canadians.

38 Further, CRTC regulation attracts a relatively small reading audience. Unless efforts are made tomake Canadians aware of their opportunities to participate in the broadcasting system through

community-based television services, it seems unlikely that they would come to the awareness ontheir own.

39 And finally, lack of resources plays a significant role in limiting interest in community-based

television services. If, for example, community channel monies were made available to supportindependent community-based television services, it seems certain that the number of license

applications would increase. We point to the situation in Quebec where Ministry of Culturemonies are made available and independent channels have proliferated. The Keeble Report also

comes to a similar conclusion, that adequate funding is required for success in the communityprogramming sector.

40 Q8. We recommend that community channel resources be managed independent of the cableoperators, and that the resources be made available to support independent community-based

services.


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41 We also support the CACTUS proposal for community channel resources to be allocated in part

through the establishment of community media resource centres much like local libraries acrossthe country.

I (d): Direct-to-home satellite services

42 Q11. We support including direct-to-home satellite services within the community channelframework. We recommend that like cable operators the DTH provider contribute to local

programming as a percentage of gross revenues. These resources could be used to help fund thecommunity element of the broadcasting system: independent applications for community-basedtelevision services; the CACTUS proposal for community media resource centres; a community

programming ombudsperson office; in short, all of the strategies outlined in our submission forrevitalizing community access programming and meeting its public interest policy objectives.

II: Access programming

43 Q12 Q14. This is perhaps the single-most evident failure of community channel policy since

restructuring began in 1997.

44 Since 2002, individuals and organizations across Canada have complained that accessopportunities at cable company managed community channels are limited or non-existent. In

many areas there are no volunteer opportunities. In others, there has been a steady decline involunteer opportunities including production opportunities, creative decision-making and in

producer and management roles. We refer the Commission to the testimony, evidence and

complaints of ordinary Canadians that have been directed to the CRTC since the implementationof 2002-61, and those submissions in these hearings including CACTUS, the Community MediaEducation Society, ACCES-TV, EMTSET PRODUCTIONS and the thousands of individual

submissions from ordinary Canadians.

45 A significant barrier to addressing these concerns from the publics perspective is access to

adequate and relevant information. As it stands, the public does not have access to detailedfinancial accounting, programming logs, access requests and volunteer involvement for cable

company managed community channels.

46 We first recommend that those responsible for managing community television assets be held to ahigh standard of accountability including transparency of spending, decision-making andoperations. Ideally, those who manage community channel resources must do so in trust for and

on behalf of public interest.

47 The existing requirements and obligations for citizen participation should be changed to better

reflect the goals and objectives of the community channel regulations. In this regard, werecommend three changes:

(i) community channel funds should be administered as a public trustand by

independent, not-for-profit organizations who are representative of the communitiesthey serve;

(ii) those who are responsible for community programming resources should be held to

a high standard of accountability and record-keeping with an emphasis on transparency and public accountability regarding financial and programming decisions; and


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(iii) provision for how to proceed in the event that community programming objectives are not

being met either through inability, negligence, ormala fide intent. We refer theCommission to our earlier recommendation that the Commission establish from existing

funds an ombudsperson office of community programming to address complaints andregulatory compliance in the sector.

48 The goal of citizen participation in cultural production is relevant to democratic governanceregardless of the technologies at play, i.e. whether cultural networks are terrestrial or online.

Citizen participation in public discourses and cultural expression helps to ensure that the interestsof all Canadians get heard, aids in conflict resolution and negotiation over scarce resources,creates opportunities for Canadians to challenge ideas and offer innovation, to solve problems,

and to preserve cultural memory .

49 It is also worth pointing out that despite new opportunities created through networked patterns ofcultural connectivity, online consumption habits are in fact more concentrated within fewer

sources than in traditional media systems.1

Despite arguably wider access to sources of media,patterns of use suggest even higher concentrations of audience attention.

50 There also remain significant and unresolved barriers to online connectivity in the form of digitaldivides: rural and urban, wealthy and poor, skilled and unskilled, etc. Networked informationeconomies do not in and of themselves solve the problems and concerns regarding citizen

participation in civil society. The problems and limitations persist, but manifest in different ways.

52 Furthermore, the ways in which community programming facilitate community building,

mentorship learning, collaborative creativity are not replicated by posting a video on Youtube.

53 Ensuring citizen participation in the cultural life of a society where dominant modes of

communication appear to converging to online and digitally networked forms (while still for the

time being remaining firmly rooted in a terrestrial distribution system) prompts a rethinking of theways in which we conceive citizen participation and the ways in which we might mobilize

resources to encourage and expand that participation.

54 In the same ways that technologies of production and distribution are proliferating platforms andfacilitating their convergence into overlapping networks of distribution, we recommend that the

CRTC consider approaches to citizen participation in programming that also reflects these trends.

55 One such approach is the proposal by CACTUS for community-owned and operated multimedia

access production and distribution centres, much like local libraries, but with an emphasis on

local cultural reflection.

56 Community channel policies emerged from a desire to use a small fraction of the resourcesgenerated in the markets created and regulated through the broadcasting system markets which

are dependent on both public and private resources - to address deficiencies in the ways thosemarkets encourage or discourage public participation, diversity of voices and points of view, local

reflection, cultural preservation and histories.

57 With this in mind, we support the CACTUS proposal for using community television resources to

establish community media resource production and distribution centres.

1Benkler,Y.2006.TheWealthofNetworks .NewHaven,CT:YaleUniversity.


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Part III (a) (b) & (c): Advertising, LPIF & BDU contributions

advertising

58 Q15 Q17. Advertising restrictions should not be removed.

59 To allow the unfettered sale of air-time on community channels could negatively affect the local

advertising markets of conventional broadcasters thus siphoning already shrinking revenues awayfrom struggling local broadcasters.

60 Allowing commercial advertising on the community channel in effect grants the cable companieslicenses for television channels without the benefit of a public hearing.

61 Allowing commercial advertising on the community channel would inevitably drive

programming in the direction of conventional television which is clearly not the goal ofcommunity channel policy. The goal of community-based programming is to complement rather

than duplicate commercial programming.

LPIF

62 Q18. The LPIF could be used to fund the production of community programming onindependently operated community television services, although with over $100 million annually

available through the community channel levy, it is hard to understand why the levy funds

wouldnt be used to support community programming rather than the LPIF.

BDU contributions

63 Q19. The current level of BDU contributions is adequate. As indicated in the CACTUSsubmission, the amount collected in 2008 ($116,000,000) is enough to operate multi-media

community-access resource centres within the reach of 90% of Canadians.

64 We also recommend that for the long-term health of the community sector, that this levy also becollected from direct-to-home satellite companies.

65 Q20. As stated, the BDU contributions should be managed by arms length independent communityrepresentative not-for-profit organizations.

66 In any event, at a very minimum, BDU contributions should be allocated towards accessprogramming in the same proportion of community channel programming which must be made

available for access programming under the regulations (50% of the 60% of total programmingwhich must be produced locally). Or in other words, at a bare minimum 30% of the BDU

contributions should be earmarked and made available to support access programming.

67 These access programming funds should be administered by an independent not-for-profitorganization. A useful model for administering the funds is to be found in the federalgovernments Canada Council for the Arts.

68 The access programming funds should not be rolled in with the LPIF. Community accessprogramming is the most vulnerable, least organized and least well represented of the three

elements in the broadcasting system. The clear and present danger of allowing these funds to be


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administered through the LPIF is that they will be eventually and we suggest inevitably swallowed

up by these more dominant and well organized and funded concerns.

69 Q.21 Community-based television programming undertakings should have access to BDUcontributions for local expression.

Part IV (b): New technologies (b)

70 Q.24-27 Community-access channels, as the third legislatively recognized element of thebroadcasting system should receive the same consideration regarding new technologies in duecourse as the private and public elements.

71 Like the private and public elements, community programming has also begun to migrate to online

platforms and will in all likelihood continue to do so.

72 Like the private and public elements, online distribution does not replace terrestrial distribution norrender terrestrial distribution irrelevant, inconsequential, unnecessary.

73 In Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-329 the CRTC set out its intent to continue toexempt new media broadcasting services from its regulation.

74 As such, exempted services should not be considered a valid replacement (i.e. internet-onlycommunity broadcasting) for community programming services within the broadcasting system

any more than they should for the private or public elements.

75 The community programming created through bona fides uses of community access programmingresources is unique in process and content, and the role that it serves in Canadian communities that

is not replicated or replaced by unregulated new media cultural activities.

76 We again refer the Commission to the report in Appendix A and the ways in which community

programming undertakings can provide important opportunities for the expansion of communityassets.

77 It has been demonstrated that community programming services over time can play a direct role in

expanding community strength in terms of financial capital, ecological assets, skills andknowledge, political capabilities, cultural preservation, conflict resolution, and local physicalinfrastructure.

78 The kinds of synergies that coalesce through community production processes that are well-resourced and have access to production facilities, mentorship opportunities, skills sharing,

technical training and opportunities to participate in creative problem solving are not replicated byatomized new media activities.

79 And yet, as with the other elements of the broadcasting system, new media platforms are playing an

increasingly important role in terms of access to programming and distribution opportunities.There may be new ways of rethinking how best to achieve the goals and objectives for communityprogramming through access channel resources.

80 In this regard, we support the proposal by CACTUS that community-access channels work towardachieving distribution:


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(i) Over the air, as a primary platform, so that the programming is free to all and the

distribution infrastructure is in community hands

(ii) On cable, as part of the basic service tier (under current policy, this is automatic with anover-the-air license). Most Canadians have cable, so community media needs a

presence here.

(iii) Over the Internet, both live and on-demand

(iv) Through satellite services in the long term, as Canada experiments with spot-beaming(and as already occurs in the US).

(v) On new media, such as broadcasting to wireless devices, and podcasting,

and that this be achieved through local, community media resource centers.

81 Community production through community-media resource centres can be thought about like local

libraries in the sense of an accessible means for citizens to participate in the cultural life of their

community and wider society. But whereas libraries provide an essential archival and researchrespository for communities, the community media centre would offer access to the training andtools needed to take an active voice in the community and in Canadian society at large.

82 Community media resource centres could act as new-media incubators that lead to job creation,

community empowerment, and media innovation, and could provide media education and

production training accessible to Canadians from all backgrounds. Community media resourcecenters would provide access to skills development, leadership and job training for everyone,including marginalized citizens like at-risk youth.

83 At a time when traditional patterns of cultural production are being transformed by emergingnetworked information economies, creative approaches to journalism and media are urgently

needed. Who is going to fill the vacuum where traditional forms of local public affairsprogramming are in decline? The crisis in the traditional media industry combined with the

proliferation of new and networked models of cultural participation through the Internet hasproduced a historic opportunity to make culture more participatory, innovative, and responsive.

Community media through neighbourhood media resource centers could partly fill this void.

84 We refer to recent comments by the National Film Boards Chairman Tom Perlmutter on Canada's

digital strategy. He said recently that Canada needs to figure out how to create a vital Canadian

space" and that part of the solution is to provide facilities that enable Canadians to express theirculture and values themselves. Providing funds for community media resource centres would be a

large step in the right direction.

85 We refer the Commission to the W2 media center in Vancouver, a community media resourcecenter - the first of its kind in Canada - and referred to in other submissions. W2 provides an

excellent model for how a community media resource centre might operate in a larger urbancommunity. W2 also provides evidence for the desire of communities to have such a facilityavailable for community members.

86 Briefly, W2 is a community media arts centre in Vancouver's DTES (Downtown Eastside) openingin Spring 2010. W2 will feature a 150-capacity performance space, community TV studio, FM


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radio station, gallery, social enterprise caf, letterpress studio, telepresence and mobile media

programs. The objectives for the Centre include:

(i) providing opportunities for residents to experience the arts -- as audience, for personalgrowth and expression, as aspiring and practicing artists, and for personal and collective

voice for advocacy on issues affecting the community.

(ii) providing a platform for locally-led sustainable economic and social renewal in

collaboration with local resident, community and business organizations.

(iii) building bridges with people and organizations within and beyond the Downtown

Eastside that strengthens understanding and appreciation for the people of this communityand their accomplishments.

87 The W2 community media centre project has limited financial support for its establishment from

local and regional governments. The projects longterm sustainability will depend on access tosuitable funding from sources (like community centers and local libraries) other than through

commercial markets. It is exactly the kind of project that could benefit from access to community

channel funds, and it provides a model for the kind of community media resource centres proposedin the CACTUS submission.

88 The availability of similar resources in communities across Canada would substantively helpachieve the objectives and goals for community access regulation - namely widespread citizen

participation, local reflection and diversity of voices.

Conclusion

89 In conclusion, OpenMedia.ca would like to urge the Commission to weigh carefully the publicinterest implications of community channel resources.

90 Over the course of 30 years or so, well over $1 billion has been collected from Canadians and

earmarked to be used to achieve specific and important policy objectives of which some of themore important ones include: citizen participation in and access to cultural expression through the

broadcasting system, a diversity of voices in the broadcasting system, and the production of localreflection programming.

91 These are public resources created to achieve public purposes but which are managed by cable

companies on behalf of the Canadian public.

92 In considering the future of community channel resources, management and policy, theCommission must ask itself if the cable companies have acted to a high, transparent and

accountable standard.

93 The increasing importance of the cultural realm in Canadian social and political life is undeniable,as are the profound changes brought about to the Canadian mediascape by emerging networkedinformation economies and digital technologies. Community programming resources are a unique

and remarkably forward looking policy creation and opportunity to help Canadians maintain a

vibrant, healthy, diverse and reliable media culture.


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94 Telecommunications companies make and make available cultural goods and they create wealth

through consumer markets using private innovation and investment, but only in conjunction withpublic policy protections that have and continue to encourage large and globally competitive

companies to emerge in Canadas comparatively small economy. The resources used airwaves,spectrum frequency, even the land base for terrestrial distribution services - are public resources.

And the undeniably critical role that culture and information play in maintaining and

strengthening democratic forms of government also infuses telecommunications decisions andoutcomes with elements of public interest.

95 The public interest element of community programming should be at the forefront of theCommissions considerations in the matter of community channel policy.

On behalf of OpenMedia.ca,

Steve AndersonNational Coordinator, OpenMedia.ca

Michael Lithgow, MAResearch Associate / Community and Independent Media Policy Analyst

Dr. David SkinnerAssociate Professor in Communication Studies at York University

Dr. Leslie Regan ShadeAssociate Professor, Concordia University, Dept. of Communication Studies


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Community Television & Community Capital:A Case Study - Telile Community Television

Prepared for OpenMedia.ca by Michael Lithgow, M.A.

Community Television and Community Capital by Michael Lithgow is licensed (2009) under a

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. To view a

copy of this license visit: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca/

Table of Contents

APPENDIXA


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Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................3

Method..................................................................................................................................................17

Telile Community Television ..............................................................................................................18

Conclusions..........................................................................................................................................21

References............................................................................................................................................26

Introduction


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The current crisis in Canadian broadcasting, if we follow the news, will find its

salvation in local programming the elimination of local programming, that is. Faced with prospects of bankruptcy (CanWest Global is negotiating with creditors as this is written),

declining advertising revenues (a full 93% reduction in profits from last year to this amongprivate sector conventional TV stations, Kohanik 2009), and an economy spiraling downward

in the wake of housing foreclosures in the United States, Canadian television broadcasters are

agreed: the only way to save their networks is to significantly reduce and maybe eliminatelocal programs or, have someone else pay for them. Last years federally created $60

million Local Programming Improvement Fund was a step in that direction, a fund designed toensure that viewers in smaller Canadian markets continue to receive a diversity of localprogramming, and particularly local news programming; improve the quality and diversity of

local programming broadcast in these markets, and ensure that viewers in French-languagemarkets are not disadvantaged by the smaller size of these markets (CRTC 2008). And the

government has announced interest in a $150 million rescue fund for Canadian broadcasters, afund aimed at supporting the production of news and public affairs programs in rural areas.

Fix the local programming problem, so it seems, fix the whole problem.It is surprising that few commentators on the current crisis in local programming

mention community television, a sector of the Canadian broadcast system that receives in

excess of $100 million annually. It is a surprisingly hefty figure for such an understudied andlargely ignored aspect of Canadian television culture. Community television was recognizedand mandated through regulation in 1975 to encourage and facilitate community participation

in the mass medium of cable television. It was created to supplement commercial televisionnot replicate it, and to provide local reflection expression of local culture, stories, events,

issues, places and people. Community television was a way to ensure the opportunity for

Canadians to tell their own stories.What is rarely studied are the social outcomes of community television: What does it do?

What do Canadians do with it?

Mediated information exchange, television or otherwise, is widely recognized as one of

the central ways that people participate in society, and lack of ability to do so is often animportant component of social exclusion. Individual and groups use media to collectively

solve problems, set agendas, test ideas, preserve languages, culture and memories, celebrate,and create social identities.2 Community television in Canada can be understood, in part, as

one of the ways in which Canadians participate in all of thee activities, and one of the waysthrough which the experiences and concerns of Canadians excluded from dominant cultural

forums (for example, rural Canadians) can contribute to public culture.3

The site for this research report is rural Cape Breton, Nova Scotia where a smallindependent local television broadcaster, Telile Community Television, has been in operationsince 2002. Telile was an outgrowth from a community channel production group who, under

new regulations introduced in 2002 (CRTC 2002-61), decided to protect their presence onlocal cable by obtaining their own community broadcast license.

This report is an abridged summary of a much longer study using an asset-based

approach to community economic development as a framework for understanding the impactof community television on its local community.

2Downing 2001, 2003; Habermas 1987; Howley 2005; Rennie 2006; Rodriguez 2001; Stein 2002; Waltz 20053 Fraser 1993


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Method

Community television in Canada can be understood as non-traditional media in thesense that it does not have as its central organizing principle the sale of air-time (or print

space) to large corporate sponsors. There are two dominant forms of community television:cable company managed production, and independent community production. The latter formof production often involves groups whose expressly stated mandate is to provide content thatis different from conventional television, and to exist as organizations that do not focus on

profit.4 These groups (often referred to as citizens media or community media) often emerge

in response to economic, ideological, and educational barriers to participation in the publicsphere.5

Barriers to participation in public culture are linked to aspects of social exclusion -

systemic inequalities such as poverty, little or no education or skills training, racism, sexism,inadequate housing.

6The dynamic process of being shut out that social exclusion describes

can be measured by examining patterns of social phenomena within different realms of social

experience. It is these realms (e.g. the production, distribution, and availability of material

goods; labour markets; land tenure; security; human rights; and macro-economic developmentstrategies)7 that suggest a method of tracking how community media practices might

influence social formation.

This study employed participant observation (over a period of eight weeks),interviews with key station stakeholders (founding members, members of the board of

directors, and station staff), and a community-wide survey designed to surface the memoriesand experiences of the community at large about how Telile had effected local social reality.8This research is not and it is important to emphasize this point media effects research in

the traditional sense. Traditional effects scholarship is founded on the troubling assumption of

a gap between media maker and audience. In community media, those who make the mediacome from the communities that receive it. Among other things, conflating categories of producer and audience expands the unit of analysis when asking what is the effect to the

community itself. This study is not concerned with just the effects of Telile TV onindividuals, but rather the degree to which Telile TV increases the communitys overall abilityto influence social, political and economic outcomes. In other words: does community

television increase a communitys capacity to control their own future?The evaluation framework employed in this study was intended to map the

communitys collective memories and experiences of how local television has influenced the

latent capacities and strengths of the community where it produces and distributes

programming. In particular, the framework was designed to locate indicators that existingcommunity strengths had been expanded in some way in connection with Telile CommunityTV's operations. This approach to community development (called an asset-based approach,

and sometimes referred to as community economic development, or CED), is intended to

4 Skinner 20045 Downing 2001; Howley 2005; Rodriguez 2001; Rennie 2006; Herman and McChesney 2003; Thussu 20006 Barata 2000. I am using social exclusion in its redistributive sense, i.e. that social exclusion is linked to poverty and that solutions(steps towards social inclusion) will involve a substantial redistribution of resources and benefit payments. For further informationabout the different usages of social exclusion see Levitas 2004.7 Saloojee 20018The survey was distributed along with bingo books into the community and made available online. The survey was promoted in

local papers, on Telile, on the CBC Sydney website, and through church bulletins. The survey was responded to by 82 persons,over 90% of whom live on Isle Madame. Survey respondents were for the most part frequent Telile viewers (70% weekly).


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strategically intervene in social formation in such a way that existing capacities are

strengthened in order to increase a communitys collective abilities to solve its own problems.Within a CED framework, community strengths or capacities are understood as

manifesting in a number of phenomenal categories: human capital (which encompasses skills,education and training, health, creative abilities); social capital (relationships, trust, cultural

participation, the production of identity, and norms of behavior that facilitate collective

action); physical capital (community facilities, public transit, hospitals, housing,telecommunications, water and sanitation); economic capital (savings, formal and informal

credit, local enterprise ownership, entrepreneurial capacities); and natural capital (clean airand water, green-space, access to natural resources, adequate food supply).9 There is also theidea of political capital -- the degree to which public and private institutions are responsive

to community needs and can be made responsive to community needs.10 These categories arenot intended to be exhaustive, nor do they describe rigidly separated attributes or phenomena

within a community. They are meant to give a sense of where social change is thought tooccur when communities expand control over aspects of their social reality.

The second part of the framework is based on an abridged survey of communitymedia literature in an attempt to find links between expected community media outcomes and

the expansion of community capital. I identified four broad categories of outcomes (intended,

expected and experienced): (i) the construction of meaning, (ii) negotiating proximities topower, (iii) the formation of social bonds and (iv) expanding personal capacities. In addition,within the first category of the construction of meaning, there is the important sub-category

of the construction of social identities the ways in which we use symbolic exchange todefine ourselves in groups. These four broad categories were combined with the CED

community capital framework to arrive at an Outcomes Mapping Framework (Figure 1). The

left side of the chart indicates outcomes related to the production of collective identities; theright side indicates the four categories of outcome gleaned from the literature described above;and in the middle, the categories of community capital. Ties between community media

outcomes and community capital are indicated with dotted lines. This is the evaluation

framework tool that I took into the field.

Telile Community Television

Field research took place in the

Fall of 2006, over a period of eightweeks at Telile Community Television(Telile) in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

Telile was created in 1993 in response to

the closure of the cod fishery onCanadas east coast. According to anoriginal funding document, the Telile

project had three aims: (1) to

facilitate and enable community

economic development (CED); (2) tocreate a non-profit business; and (3) tomove Isle Madame to the informationeconomy (Telile 1993).

The closing of the cod fishery sent

economic and social shockwaves

9 Kretzman and McKnight 1993; Markey et al. 2005; Prain 2006; Roseland et al. 200510 Smith and Bailkey 2006


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throughout Canada's east coast. Before the closure, between 1989 and 1993, local wage

earnings on Isle Madame had already declined over 70% (Telile 1993). The cod fisheryclosure threatened to eliminate an additional 500 Island jobs overnight. The Telile founders

were responding in a time of impending crisis (Telile 1993):

Isle Madame is facing an economic crisis entailing the loss of 500 jobs in a work force

of only 1500. The crisis has been well documented in several reportsThese reportsmake it absolutely clear that if Isle Madame is not to suffer catastrophic economic

collapse and large-scale out-migration, the islands people must pull together andcommit themselves to [sic] vigorous program of community economic development.

One early response to the crisis was to use the local community television channel tocommunicate messages of hope and alternative economic strategies to island residents. The

Telile Community Television project received funding under The Atlantic GroundfishStrategy (or TAGS) program. Fourteen displaced fishers were trained over a 32 week period

to produce television. Programming was distributed on the local community channel throughStrait of Canso Cable TV.

11Early programming focused on responses to the fishery crisis,

CED initiatives, and the scroll was created, a text-based message board on the television

screen where local residents could (through Telile staff) post messages for communitymeetings, job opportunities, retraining programs, items for sale, community events in short, just about anything including birthday notices, baby announcements, anniversaries, thank

yous, etc. The scroll is also where Telile sells advertising local businesses pay for shorttext ads that form part of the scrolls content. Also in these early years, Telile established its

TV Bingo which, over Teliles 14 years in existence, has provided it with most of its operating

revenues.Under new regulations introduced in 2002, Telile applied for and received a license for a

non-profit community-based television programming undertaking broadcasting with a 500

watt transmitter. By becoming a community-based broadcaster, Telile secured its place on

local cable, and through its transmitter was able to reach communities and households who didnot previously have access to cable services. In 2004, Seaside Cable (which services all of

eastern cape Breton) asked if they could also send the Telile signal out onto their cablenetwork. Today, Telile is carried on Rush Cable in Richmond County and Seaside Cable in

eastern Cape Breton as far north as Glace Bay (see map below).Telile is funded primarily through a live bingo game which occurs once a week.

Bingo cards are sold on Ilse Madame and in one community on Cape Breton Island(Louisdale). In 2006, bingo accounted for over $300,000 of Telile's revenue, or about 90% oftotal revenues (see map below).

Telile has three employees: (1) a station manager, (2) a producer /advertising sales

person, and (3) a bookkeeper / assistant producer. Generally, programming is produced by thestation manager and producer. Student interns are also hired each summer to help produce

programming for the coming year. Programming cycles are planned six to eight weeks inadvance. Each month, Telile issues a TV Guide which is posted on the website, in the scroll

(described below), and distributed in the community. A programming cycle of this lengthvirtually precludes current affairs programs. Each week, one, two or three new shows are

presented two or three times throughout the week. Most of Teliles airtime is occupied withthe scroll - a text-based listing of community events, meetings, dances, congratulations,notices, job postings, rooms for rent, items for sale, etc - which plays continuously between

program blocks. The scroll is updated daily.

11

Subsequently renamed RUSH Communications.


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Telile is located in Arichat, considered to be the largest community on Isle Madame with

a population somewhere between 800 and 1,000. Arichat is where the municipal office forRichmond County is located. Telile serves two distinct cultural groups Cape Bretoners, who

are an Anglophone majority in the region (although a distinct minority within Canada, andeven within Nova Scotia) and Acadians, a Francophone minority. Ilse Madame is considered

one of the centers of Acadian culture in Nova Scotia.12

There are even two public school

systems on the little island, one Acadian, one non-Acadian. According to the 2006 census,about half of the residents self-identify as bilingual (CDENE 2006). 30% of Telile

Community TVs programming is in Acadian French.The people who live in these small, coastal communities, like most Canadians, live in

cultural milieux dominated by non-local media flows. Cable and satellite television bring

hundreds of mostly foreign-owned channels to the island saturating the mediascape withimages and sounds and stories that have little to do with the local culture, local history and

local community events. Local radio is dominated by non-local (mostly American) music.Most newspapers are produced far enough away that if the island is mentioned in a news story,

it is a noteworthy event. These commercial media flows make up the public sphere on theisland, and, like the 18

thCentury version that German communications scholar Jurgen

Habermas based his original theory of the public sphere on, there is much bracketing that goes

on. Locals in fact have little to no access to these media flows in terms of making meaningfulcontributions, and Acadian culture is all but absent from available commercial media.

Telile TV, on the other hand, creates programming of immediate relevance to the lives

of local residents. Programming consists of the community scroll (described above); music local, Acadian and Celtic music performed in local settings by local performers; interviews

with local residents, elders, community leaders and artisans; the recording of local community

events such as plays and pagents, talent shows, music and story-telling festivals, religiousevents, fundaisers. There is also a small amount of non-local programming, mainly consistingof a childrens show and an exercise show for seniors. Telile TV is a visible manifestation of

local cultural production in the Cape Breton region.

12

Acadians were the French settlers in Nova Scotia forced into exile beginning in 1755 by the British colonial government. Most

fled, but some stayed and hid in the coastal areas of Cape Breton.


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Petit-de-Grat, Isle Madame. Photo: Michael Lithgow

Conclusions

The interviews, the community survey and the review of Telile programming surfaced arange of responses concerning Teliles role(s) in the community. Telile Community Television

was organized in response to the economic and social crisis precipitated by the closure of thecod fishery. It was conceived as a vehicle to propagate and encourage community economicdevelopment strategies, to offer hope in a time of crisis, and as a small social enterprise in and

of itself. It was an attempt by community leaders to hold the community together, to provide

cultural stability, to influence local economic outcomes in such a way so as to preserve a way

of life.This research indicates that Telile has been experienced within the community in many

different ways (see Figure 2): as playing a role in the construction of local meaning (through

Acadian cultural programming, valorizing local qualities such as the landscape and the people,and by making expert knowledge accessible to a wider public); as helping to negotiate

relationships of power (through the televising of Richmond County council meetings, throughlive coverage of local elections, and by giving the community clout by having a telecom

located in its midst); as having increased local social networks and bonds (by bridging divides between French and English communities, by having kept the community together after

fishing crisis, through surfacing local communities of interest and overcoming geographic

barriers between communities, by increasing community involvement); and by expandingindividual capacities through skills sharing programming such as computer use for seniors andgardening shows, training videos, internships, workstudies. Telile is experienced as having

played an active role in the construction and maintenance of Acadian identity, in negotiatingcultural space for local experience and local values, and in preserving local history and stories.

The ways in which local residents described Telile as having influenced community life touch


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on every kind of community capital as described within an assets-based approach to

community development. There were even two new genres of outcomes identified by localresidents that did not easily fall within the prescribed schema: information flow about daily

community events and the knowledge and expertise accumulated by Telile throughsuccessfully operating a financially independent community television station over 14 years.

Community results also suggested that cultural capital and social capital, at least in this case,

make more sense as distinct categories of capital rather than as a merged category as isgenerally found in the literature.

The responses reveal descriptions of outcomes that correspond to all categories ofcommunity capital. A kind of outcome that did not easily fit into the community capitalschema was also identified -- information flow. Information flow refers to a kind of

information that is rooted in the practicality of day-to-day lives of community members, i.e.notices for meetings and community events, advertisements for good and services, real estate

sales and apartment rentals, job postings, etc. In fact, information flow was the mostfrequently mentioned category of outcome in the community survey. Among informants,

social and cultural capital were the areas of community life identified as most impacted byTelile.

* * *

Rural communities in Canada experience levels of social exclusion and social

fragmentation that suggests that they are not well served by dominant political and economicstructures (Toye and Infanti 2004). Cape Breton, a rural community on Canadas east coast, is

no exception: 18% of the population in Cape Breton lives in poverty (Lee 2000). The

unemployment rate hovers around 27% (CDENE 2006). Cape Breton has the highest cancerrates in Nova Scotia, and a cancer death rate 25% higher than the national average (GPI 2003).Deaths due to bronchitis, emphysema and asthma are a full 50% higher in Cape Breton than

the national average (GPI 2003). Cape Breton has the lowest average disability-free life

expectancy of Canadas 139 health regions (GPI 2003). And a 2004 report suggests thatupwards of 50,000 young people will leave Cape Breton between now and 2021 looking for

better opportunities (CBC 2004). Cape Breton, like many rural areas throughout the world,appears to be caught in a web of social forces that increasingly marginalizes its population

from the social and economic advantages created by the society in which it exists.The cod fishery collapse in the early 1990s brought into acute relief the vulnerability of

these rural communities. When community leaders responded to the crisis, one of their firstobservations was that they had no way to communicate with local residents. The public sphereon Isle Madame was dominated by commercial and non-local media providers (much like it is

today with the exception of Telile) leaving little room for local participation. The community

decided to produce information independently and non-commercially through a communitytelevision channel.

With hindsight, and looking at Teliles role today, we can see that community leaderswere groping towards an expanded sense of what Dick Stanley calls cultural citizenship

enhancing a capacity for action, creating and retaining identity, modifying values and preferences for collective choice, building social cohesion, contributing to community

development and fostering civic participation.13 It was a recognition and expectation that bycontrolling some aspects of the media in their community, the community as a whole stood abetter chance of surviving the impending economic and social calamity of the closure of the

fishery. i.e. that they would have more control over their collective economic and social fate if

they could exercise more control over the media flows in their communities.

13 Stanley 2005


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In this study community television was shown to not only play a role in nearly all

aspects of community life, but in ways that expand community capital and diminish problemsrelated to social exclusion.


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FIGUER 1


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FIGURE 2


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