(francais en bas)

GATINEAU. A group of media watchers and researchers sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper today calling for a public education campaign on the transition to digital television. On August 31, 2011—just under a year from now—broadcasters will start shutting down their analog TV transmitters, which may come as a rude shock to as many as 3 million Canadians who rely on them for TV service.

After the transition:

· Canadians in approximately 47 cities (those with populations over 300,000 and some smaller centres) where broadcasters are installing new transmitters will need a digital TV or a digital-to-analog converter to continue watching TV for free over the air.

· Over-the-air viewers outside the centres slated for digital upgrades will need to find other options to continue watching television after analog transmitters are shut down. The number of transmitters operating in Canada is slated to drop from nearly 1,000 to about 150.

“The transition to digital TV poses a threat to rural and low-income Canadians” says Catherine Edwards of the Canadian Association for Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS). “Digital broadcasting has huge potential, but communities have to know the changes are coming and the clock is ticking.”

“The transition requires a sophisticated public awareness campaign,” says Michael Janigan, Executive Director and General Counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. “One day soon, Canadians are going to turn on their TV sets to watch the news or their favourite show, and all they’ll see is static. People need to understand what is happening to TV broadcasting where they live and they’ll need clear information, repeated over and over again.”

Ottawa (November 22, 2010) In both the recent renewal of Shaw’s 22 western cable licenses and in its appearance before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage last week, the CRTC called for changes to the CRTC Act that would enable it to fine broadcasting and telecommunications entities that violate regulations and conditions of licence.

The Shaw decision states, “The Commission is required to rely on sub-optimal regulatory tools to address non-compliance issues, resulting in less effective and more costly regulation, to the detriment of the broadcasting system and all Canadians.” In his presentation before the Standing Committee, CRTC Chairman Konrad von Finckenstein said, “We need the authority to impose administrative monetary penalties—AMPs... It would provide a timely corrective and deterrent for all players to see.”

The Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) strongly supports the CRTC’s call for tougher regulatory tools. Catherine Edwards, spokesperson for CACTUS, said, “The community TV sector knows at first hand how difficult it is for the CRTC to take quick action when its only regulatory mechanism is to shorten licence terms. As the Chairman articulates, if a license term is five years or longer, the market can change completely or another cable company may take over before violations are addressed.”

Ottawa (November 2, 2010) Community and local TV advocates have asked Shaw and the CRTC on three occasions recently to ensure that Canada’s broadcast system remains open to public participation and local content production. As one of Canada’s largest and most highly vertically integrated media companies, Shaw Communications plays a large role in Canada’s media landscape.

"Broadcasting in Canada is changing fast and Shaw is leading the charge," explains Catherine Edwards, the spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS). "In exchange for using a limited public resource—the airwaves—the company needs to respect the priorities of Canadians, especially with regard to local content."

CACTUS intervened at the license renewals for Shaw cable systems in September, calling for Shaw to reopen approximately 40 community-access studios that the company has closed across Western Canada since the 1990s. "There used to be twelve neighbourhood offices in the Vancouver area alone where the public could borrow equipment and create programs," says Richard Ward of the Community Media Education Society. "Now there’s just one." Providing community access has long been a requirement of cable operators and their performance is reviewed during license renewals. The CRTC’s decision is pending.

The CRTC did approve Shaw’s purchase of Canwest Global’s TV stations and specialty channels last week, subject to a requirement to upgrade all of Global’s over-the-air transmitters to digital within five years, including 67 in smaller communities in BC, Ontario and Nova Scotia. The ruling also requires Shaw to offer space on Global transmission towers to other local and community broadcasters on a cost-recovery basis.

Ottawa (August 28,2010) After eight long years of complaints from the Canadian public that they have been excluded from “community TV channels” on cable, the CRTC yesterday released a new community TV policy for Canada that is little better than the existing policy.

As dissenting Commissioner Michel Morin dubs it, “The Commission’s paternalistic community model” leaves community cable channels and the money that is collected from Canadians for “local expression” firmly under the control of cable companies. Catherine Edwards, Spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) noted, “The Commission ignored the request of the Canadian public—which was made abundantly clear at these hearings—that the time has come for community broadcasting to be in the hands of communities, as it is in all other countries that have a community sector. This is how it operates here in Canada in the community radio sector. Why not TV?”

Licences for communities to run their own channels were introduced in 2002, but there was no funding formula. The CRTC’s analysis acknowledges that a lack of funding explains why so few community licenses have been requested, yet the new policy denies communities access to the Local Programming Initiative Fund, denies access to commercial advertising, and denies access to the more than $120 million collected annually from Canadians for “local expression”, but which instead goes to cable companies for their professional regional channels.

Ottawa (May 3/2010) The first week of the CRTC community TV policy review saw presenter after presenter endorse an independent, community-owned and –operated model for community television, in line with the policy of most other countries.

Supporters for the CACTUS proposal to make more funding available for independent, community-run channels included almost all industry stakeholders except cable companies themselves, which currently have a stranglehold on community channel spending—more than $100,000,000 per year.

They include ACTRA, the Directors' Guild, CTV, Canwest, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union; the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association, the Canadian Conference for the Arts, the Independent Media Arts Alliance, the City of Burnaby, Metro Vancouver, the Canadian Media Guild, the Documentary Organization of Canada, OpenMedia, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, Stornoway Communications (which operates the ichannel, bpm:tv and The Pet Network), the Canadian Library Association, Telecommunities Canada, the Canadian Association of Media Education Organizations and the Assembly of First Nations.

"There’s a widespread understanding that the cable-administered model doesn’t work any more," said CACTUS spokesperson, Cathy Edwards "Even groups that didn’t endorse the CACTUS proposal by name nonetheless recognized the problems with the current system, including the CBC, the English Languages Arts Network, and the Aboriginal People’s Television Network (APTN)."

Ottawa (April 28/2010) The CRTC hearing into the future of community television opened Monday with a proposal by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) to create community-owned and –operated multi-media channels with the funding collected from cable subscribers for "local expression".

The 15-minute opening remarks by CACTUS summarized the ways in which the current policy for community television has failed throughout much of Canada, leading to widespread channel closures and the domination of programming by cable company staff. The presentation went on to call for the creation of a new Community-Access Media Fund to which communities could apply to run their own channels, and for over-the-air frequencies.

"We’re very pleased with the reception we got. Chairman von Finckenstein acknowledged our calls for more transparency when he offered the release of additional financial data about cable-operated community channels by May 7th," said Catherine Edwards, the spokesperson for CACTUS. "We also appreciated the obvious preparedness of the Commissioners, their detailed questions, and the time they took to explore our proposal."

Seven Commissioners questioned the CACTUS panel for more than two hours.

Currently, cable operators in systems having over 20,000 subscribers are required to spend 2% of their gross revenues on the provision of a community channel for public use. This amounted to more than $120,000,000 last year. Audits obtained by CACTUS from the CRTC under Access to Information requests revealed that more than 70% of the content on such channels are produced by cable company staff, and that much of the remaining 30%— although reported as made by community members—may in fact be made by cable staff. Under the CACTUS proposal, the $120,000,000 would be redirected to 250 multi-media training and broadcasting hubs across Canada, to be operated by communities.

Ottawa (April 23/2010) New analysis done by the Community Media Education Society (CMES) of the thousands of submissions filed in the CRTC’s review of its community TV policy shows that more than three thousand Canadians support community ownership and control of community TV, said the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS). The submissions are a key part of the evidence before the CRTC as it assesses its policy in this area, along with the testimony at a hearing beginning Monday

“Canadians are passionate about their right to access their own broadcasting system,” said CACTUS spokesperson, Cathy Edwards, “Even letters that support the old status quo of cable company control strongly support the existence of a community channel and the importance of local content.” The CMES analysis found that the majority of letters appearing to support continued cable authority over communities’ TV channels may not have understood that cable companies have virtually eliminated Canadians’ ability to create and produce their own programs on community channels. “Cable companies have so thoroughly eroded the access concept by replacing community-produced programs with their own productions, that many of those who wrote the CRTC were grateful simply to have been guests on programs made by cable companies.”

"Transferring control of the community TV channel to communities themselves means that access will no longer be a whimsy of a few large companies,” said Edwards. "At the CRTC’s first community TV hearing in 1971, intervenor after intervenor asked that community TV be run by communities themselves. We need to listen to Canadians.” Community control is standard in Canada’s community radio sector, and in every other country with community TV.

Ottawa (March 31/2010) CRTC audits of community channels operated by Canada’ largest cable companies from 2002 through 2005 (the last year in which the CRTC monitored them) show numerous abuses, said the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) today.

In 2002, the CRTC found that 11 of the 13 systems it audited, including Shaw, Cogeco, Access, Eastlink, and Rogers, could not be evaluated because of missing tapes, tape malfunctions, and inconsistencies between logs and tapes.

Rogers routinely exceeded the maximum of two minutes per hour of promotional ads allowed (sometimes by as much as 7 minutes), and doubled the 15-second limit for sponsorship messages. Its OHL hockey program contained 24 ads in one episode and another 41 two nights later—but none of the ads were indicated in the Rogers logs. As for On Line with Rogers, aired in Guelph, the CRTC wrote the hour-long show was “similar to an hour long promo of their services.”

Community channels were created in the 1970s to enable Canadians to actively participate in their own broadcasting system. The CRTC’s current policy requires cable companies to ensure that at least 30% of their community channels’ schedules consist of “access program": that is, produced by members of the community. The companies have been having difficulty meeting even this minimum (only 27% last year). The CRTC audits found that Cogeco, Rogers, Shaw, and Persona all classified staff-produced news and other programming—even MTV promos in one instance—as “access programming”. Some Eastlink systems reported no access programming at all.