US Public-Access, Government, and Educational Channels Create Free National Network

(reprinted from PRLOG of Jan. 6, 2013)

Do America's struggling families deserve free TV for life?

A group of small-market broadcasters think so.

Octave Network Television has entered the media marketplace as a no-fee hdtv service provider, offering dozens of public, government and community access channels free of charge to every U.S, citizen.

8ctave's network combines the strength of hundreds of small-market, noncommercial, student-run, government, public-sourced and community access broadcast stations from across the country. Many of these 'tiny towers' are grossly underfunded, underpowered or unavailable without digital 'rabbit ear' antennas.

Public broadcasters are a vital part of national media, connecting communities, serving the public trust and acting as key components to national security through use of the FCC's Emergency Alert System, which informs and instructs the public during a crisis.

Now enters Octave, a startup bent on 'Powering Public Access' with streaming TV technology, broadcasting to millions of Americans via Roku and other internet TV receivers.

Roku is the largest streaming TV box in America, credited with creating the popular Netflix video on-demand service. Devices like Roku contain the nuts and bolts that enable Octave's free HD offerings, with units costing less than $50.

In addition to on-demand content delivery, Octave channels broadcast in TV's traditional linear format. Octave looks like 'regular' TV because it is, combining the strength and character of America's Public Access broadcasters into a nationwide network with more potential carriers than ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX combined.

According to Octave founder Edward Balboa, you need "a lot of Davids" to take on a Goliath, a role relished by the unknown recently dubbed 'The Rocky Balboa of Broadcasting.' He says folks often mistake Octave for a music channel, but that an Octave's true description isn't so do-ray-mi.

"A true 'Octave' is defined as the distance between two matching frequencies, in our case frequencies used to transmit and receive information. An Octave's bridge 'breaks' when two frequencies either don't match or are too far apart to talk to each other."

Although Octave is a for-profit corporation, Balboa doesn't seem to run it like one. He freely gives away affiliate broadcast channels to every city, public school, qualifying church and charity in America, and refuses to siphon funds from government programs to do it.

Coining his free HD service 'Obamacable' may just be a term of endearment from its founder, but Edward's public telly-vision appears to be bigger than Big Bird. He says that 8ctave gives hundreds of independent stations the ability to operate on a level playing field, speak to a nationwide audience and protect the public by using the government-mandated EAS system more effectively.

"Octaves are what allow us to see, hear and experience the world around us. Octave Television offers a free, unbiased HDTV service that allows complete participation in our democracy, solving problems together as an informed population. We'll never grow, learn, thrive or understand each other until every American can freely communicate."

Communities wishing to add their voice to 8ctave Public Access may make channel inquiries via email to programming@octavetv.com.

For pictures, actualities and interviews please contact:

Edward Balboa
8ctave Network Television
213-787-3904 / 213-444-3180
programming@octavetv.com

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Hagensborg, BC: 2nd Community to Salvage CBC Equipment to Maintain Free Service

Hagensborg, BC is the second community that CACTUS is aware of that has salvaged CBC equipment in order to maintain CBC TV free to air. “The story of television in the Bella Coola Valley is one of community perserverence and ingenuity” says John Morton of the Hagensborg TV Society. “We rebroadcast 6 television signals and 3 radio channels using a community-owned transmission tower” he says. “The CRTC at first refused to licence our system back in the 1970s, because the CBC had reported that it was technically impossible to have TV reception in the Bella Coola Valley. This was a surprise to those of us who had witnessed--among other events--the moon landing in 1969!”

Hagensborg is one of over 600 communities that was slated to lose free over-the-air CBC and Radio Canada service on July 31st of last year, the date the CBC turned off its analog over-the-air transmission network, and began retiring equipment. The Hagensborg TV Society offered the CBC a nominal amount for the analog transmitter, receivers, modulators and amplifiers, which would likely have been scrapped. “The community is really delighted to have been able to re-establish over-the-air service. Many in our community can't afford satellite TV. Although there are some costs to maintain the tower and pay downlink fees for the channels we want, it works out to only about 60$ per household per year, which is really affordable."

Hagensborg is a community of about 300 households, located in the Bella Coola Valley near the coast of BC. Catherine Edwards of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations said, “There was no reason for any community to lose existing services because of the digital transition. What was missing was a clear communications package about the transition ahead of time from government and from the CBC, explaining how communities could maintain the equipment if the CBC pulled out. As far as we are aware, the only communities that have acquired CBC equipment and ‘turned the CBC back on’ since the July 31st cut-off date are well established societies like this one. BC has an amazing history of TV societies and community-based ISPs that offer their communities everything from highspeed wireless Internet, to remote television and radio services, to local TV and radio content.”

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Neepawa Community TV Available on MTS Manitoba-Wide

Neepawa Community TV can now be seen across on Manitoba on MTS Ultimate TV, in addition to its prior distribution over the air within the town of Neepawa, and on the Westman Cable network.

The MTS Ultimate TV service is growing thanks to the expansion of MTS’s fibre-to-the-home network, the MTS FiON Network. Since 2010, MTS has launched the MTS FiON Network in Selkirk, Steinbach, Dauphin, Thompson, The Pas, Neepawa, Carberry, Minnedosa, Killarney, and select areas of Winnipeg. More communities are being added as we write, which will bring NACTV to an even wider audience.

“MTS is proud to provide Neepawa Access TV to subscribers throughout Manitoba,” said Greg McLaren, Manager of MTS TV Content.

Ivan Traill, the manager of the Neepawa community channel, is delighted. "Many ex-Neepawa residents that have moved to Winnipeg can now see us, and they're thrilled that they can see our sporting and other events. They're even getting together to watch them!"

CACTUS is delighted too. "It's essential that community TV channels be available on whatever platform residents obtain TV service, so that the whole community can share the content."

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CACTUS Requests Commission Decision on Cable Audit Findings

As many of you know, CRTC staff elected to audit selected cable community channels for a week in March of 2011, in response to data provided by CACTUS that suggested that many cable licence areas fail to meet both the access and local programming thresholds specified in regulations. Shaw, Rogers, Videotron, Cogeco and Eastlink were asked to provide their programming logs to the CRTC for a week and to answer a series of questions about their programming.

Their responses were forwarded to CACTUS in the summer of 2011 for our comment. After a six-week review, we filed a 70-page analysis of the logs to the CRTC at the end of 2011.

In June of 2012, CRTC staff sent CACTUS a letter that acknowledged some issues with cable community channels, but offered a differing interpretation of what constitutes an "access program", which led staff to different conclusions regarding cable company compliance with the 2010 community channel policy.

CACTUS filed a request with the Commission today for clarification, and for a formal Commission decision regarding the 2011 audit. We will keep you updated in the new year.

For more information about the issues that require clarification, and to see our letter, click here.

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Dec. 2012 Letter to CRTC Regarding 2011 Cable Community TV Audit

This letter is a response to a June 21st, 2012 letter from CRTC staff regarding the audit done by the CRTC in March of 2011 of selected cable community channels. The letter requests a Commission decision about the findings.

» View resource link

New Code of Access Best Practices for BDU-Owned Community Channels

As you may be aware, the new community TV policy announced by the CRTC in September of 2010 (CRTC 2010-622) announced that an "industry working group" would be established to create of Code of Access Best Practices to guide cable operators in the administration of cable community channels.

CACTUS objected (as did the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec--the Fédétvc) that the "industry working group" included five representatives of cable companies, and none from the general public these channels are meant to serve. In response to our complaint, the "working group" was told it must "consult" both the Fédétvc and CACTUS regarding the contents of the Code. The extent of this consultation was that the working group sent us a copy of their draft code. We and the Fédétvc submitted separate but similar comments to the effect that the Code gives cable companies too broad a scope to reject particular programming ideas on grounds such as "community values" and "public taste" (as determined by who?)

The working group ignored our comments, and submitted its draft Code to the CRTC. The CRTC posted the document for public comment in September of 2011. Since our comments had been ignored, both CACTUS and the Fédétvc resubmitted our comments as part of this public process. Finally, another year later, the Code of Best Practices was announced on September 7, 2012. Although the Code is largely the document proposed by the cable industry working group, it does include two new sections about dispute resolution and copyright (the latter echoing almost verbatim CACTUS' suggestions):

1. If disputes arise about access between producers and any broadcast distribution undertaking (BDU) and it cannot be resolved by the parties, a third-party arbitrator agreeable to both parties is to be appointed. Any expenses related to the arbitration are to be borne by the BDU.

   While we approve the availability of an occasional arbitration process―-and although community advisory committees that might be involved in the day-to-day operation of cable and other BDU community channels are suggested in 2010-622—-there is still no requirement that BDUs establish such committees, which might have day-to-day input into access practices..

2. The copyright for access programs stays with community producers, regardless of how much assistance they receive from BDUs. BDUs can play the program within the licenced area, but the community producer may sell or exploit the program on any other platform they wish.

This is a fundamental and important shift. While back in the day it was relatively easy for volunteers to propose program ideas and to produce them with cable company assistance, it was always the cable company that retained copyright. Over time, as cable company staff took more and more control over community channel content, this led to a perception that it was volunteers who assisted cable company staff to make programs, and not the other way around. The new Code asserts the opposite: that insofar as the 50% of the programming schedule that is meant to be community-access at least, it is the BDU that assists community members to get their ideas to the small screen.

This ruling shows that while CACTUS has been largely ignored to date by the federal regulator regarding the inappropriateness of for-profit corporations controlling what should be a community-managed resource, it does demonstrate that when an issue tightly corresponds to a political hot button of the day (copyright), you can get results.

The problem, of course, is that the Code as written gives too much latitude to BDUs to decline particular programming ideas in the first place, so a given program proposed by a given community member may never get made at all.

There's no question that this is a moral victory, but it remains to be seen whether it is a practical one. To read the CRTC's decision and the full text of the new Code (the Code is Appendix 1 to the decision), see:

Code of Access Best Practices.

Let us know what you think of the new Code and how it is likely to affect you. (All members can comment on any article.)

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CACTUS Contributes Fresh Ideas to CBC Licence Renewal Hearing

CACTUS participated in both the written and oral phases of the CBC licence renewal process. Although commenting on the role of the public broadcaster would normally not fall within our mandate, we decided to participate because CACTUS' Executive Director Catherine Edwards and Karen Wirsig of the Canadian Media Guild had co-authored and presented a paper in the spring at the Journalism Strategies conference at McGill regarding models by which public and community broadcasters could collaborate to improve local media. The paper proposes models by which more quality and quantity of local content could be created in an austere financial environment. It responds to statements in the CBC's 2015 strategy document "Everyone, Everyway" in which the CBC commits to maximize its presence in the regions by entering into new partnerships and using new technologies. Examples of such partnership could include:

• sharing of transmission infrastructure (our recent campaign to salvage CBC towers and transmitters for communities)

• sharing of facilities in an affiliate relationship (e.g. local volunteer-production as well as CBC network content within a shared schedule, or two separate licences working out of a shared facility)

• sharing of content, possibly by uploading to a central server for CBC regional news outlets to access

The paper proposes the establishment of a fund to encourage such partnerships, which was endorsed in the CMG's presentation before the CRTC.

These ideas were also suggested independently as part of the Payette report, which recommended that Telequebec source content from Quebec community broadcasters.

While individual CBC journalists and staff assisted at the conference in the spring, and CACTUS and the CMG have sent copies of the presentation to the CBC, no formal response has yet been received from the Corporation. We did, however, receive endorsements for the idea from OpenMedia and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre at the CBC licence renewal hearing, and in the document "Reimagine CBC", the product of months of public consultation conducted by OpenMedia in partnership with Leadnow.ca and Gen Why. Recommendation 4 out of 5 in this document is "Collaborate with the right partners, who have deep roots in the community." The document cites Karen's and Cathy's paper, as well as CACTUS' campaign to encourage the CBC to offer its decommissioned towers and transmitters to communities to repurpose.

We look forward to the opportunity to discuss these ideas directly with the CBC in the months ahead.

Cathy's and Karen's paper is available on our web site here: Public and Community Partnerships to Improve Local Media.

You can read the "Reimagine CBC" document here.

The transcript from the CBC hearing in which a new fund to develop public-community partnerships was proposed can be found: here (search for "CACTUS").

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Hay River, NWT First Community to Acquire CBC Transmission Equipment So Far

Despite the barrage of more than 2200 letters to the CBC and the CRTC in the summer requesting that CBC towers and transmitters slated for decommissioning be offered to communities first, the CRTC imposed no special conditions on the national broadcaster prior to shutting off free-to-air CBC and Radio-Canada service on July 31st.

Communities were told that they could apply directly to the CBC for transmitters, and to a third-party (Capital Networks) managing the sale of the CBC's tower sites. Although the dead-line for requesting towers was October 9th, only a handful of communities have yet received a reply from the CBC. Those that have have been declined except for one. Gary Hoffman of the Hay River TV Society in the NWT managed to acquire both the CBC English, CBC French, and APTN transmitters and has restored all three services to his community. The transmitters were donated by the CBC free of charge.

In the case of Maniwaki, Quebec and various rural sites in Manitoba, however, several communities have been informed that they didn't make it past the first stage in the commercial bid process. One group bid on several remote sites, offering the CBC thousands of dollars per tower, but was still declined. The group had been told that many of the towers have revenues associated with them. Space may be leased on the towers by third parties for another 5 or 10 years...

... which once again raises the question, why is the CBC getting rid of them?

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