Ontario
Schreiber Public Library
Public library that streams community-generated content.
Toronto Community Media Network
Umbrella group for production associations within the GTA that want to apply for a community TV license on cable and over the air. In development.
FirstTeltv5 (Wiki TV5)
Cable-distributed community TV station on Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve
Regent Park Focus Youth Media Arts Centre
Closed circuit TV, radio, Internet, video game, and print magazine made by youth of Regent Park.
CACTUS Meets End-of-First-Year Targets for Trillium Foundation
CACTUS filed its end-of-year report for the first year in a two-year grant by the Ontario Trillium Foundation to promote digital broadcasting opportunities to communities across Ontario.
CACTUS had committed to engage at least 6 communities in the process of setting up a digital media centre by the end of year 1 of its grant, and 15 communities by the end of year 2.
Work during the first year focussed on a) salvaging broadcasting transmission equipment being decommissioned by both TVO and the CBC for use by communities and b) reaching out to municipalities, bands, and communities across Ontario about the potential of digital technologies for broadcasting to improve local communications.
Eighty-seven communities secured former TVO broadcast towers, and one community in Ontario has acquired a former CBC TV transmitter to date. Community groups in the following areas so far are exploring the potential for a digital community media centre to improve increase access to media skills training and local content (some using former TVO and CBC equipment):
- Toronto
- Manitoulin Island
- Sandy Lake First Nations
- North Bay
- Ottawa-Maniwaki
- Parry Sound
We look forward to working with these groups throughout the coming year, and in welcoming others to the process as our outreach to communities across the province continues.
For more information on the Ontario Trillium Foundation and its granting programs, click here.
CFTV Leamington Community Television
To bring to the community a locally owned and operated low power television broadcasting facility designed to service the information needs of the local population. Our schools, businesses, town councils, and special events deserve an in-depth local voice and exposure. Provide a local news source covering local activities.
Pirate TV Station in Toronto Challenges CRTC
In a recent press relase, Jan Pachul, creator of Star Ray TV has thrown a gauntlet down at the feet of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Accusing the CRTC of corruption after 10 years of trying to get a license for a low-power community station, Star Ray TV is on the air and broadcasting in Toronto, Canada without a license.
According to Pachul, the CRTC will not grant a hearing to ask the public if they support Star Ray's application for a low-power community license in the Toronto area -- a refusal that Pachul says goes against a 1971 Supreme Court of Canada decision affirming an applicant's statutory right to a hearing when an application is filed with the CRTC. Says Pachul: "Past CRTC actions in regards to Star Ray could best be described as shameless bald-faced fraud. These actions include returning our application as "incomplete" over a year after we answered all deficiency" questions, manufacturing a complaint using a fictitious person, taking almost one year to answer correspondence, inventing a regulation to stop the processing of our application, violating our privacy rights, in sum denying Star Ray TV any due process to become a legitimate station."
Pachul's complaints against the CRTC are not limited to his own community license stand-off. Pachul also recently accused the CRTC Diversity" Hearings scheduled for next week as being "a charade that they have put on to mask the truth that the big private broadcasters effectively control them."
The volunteer run Star Ray TV offers viewers local event coverage, a weekly forum discussing Toronto issues, local sports, and programming provided by Canadian producers. Star Ray also distributes on the internet supplying over 50 channels of international radio and streaming video programming including Star Ray TV and SR Music, a radio station uniquely programmed by the listeners through a web interface. These free channels can be accessed through the tobradcast.com website.
