Amidst concerns over the future of local TV and the financial health of the broadcast television industry in Canada, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, (CRTC, or the Commission) will hold public hearings into policies for community television beginning April, 2010.
While the Commission has identified a number of issues and a broad scope for this review, participants may raise other issues and concerns.
Regulatory frameworks, industry funding contributions and other financial mechanisms, the impact of digital media platforms and the on-going concerns over local broadcast TV are among the issues to be discussed.
The CRTC has set out several specific questions it wants to address, and it is seeking public comment on them. The Commission requests that parties identify the questions to which they are responding in their submissions.
The Commission encourages interested parties to monitor the public examination file and the Commission’s website for additional information that they may find useful when preparing their comments, at http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2009/2009-661.htm
According to CACTUS, the Canadian Association of Campus and Community Television User Groups and Stations, community television in Canada receives over $100 million annually ($116 million in 2008), money that cable companies are mandated to use to provide community channels.
CACTUS is an online resource and meeting place for campus and community television volunteers, producers, station managers, advocates and activists. This website is intended to be a tool for the advocacy, mobilization and preservation of community television in Canada.
For more Mediacaster Magazine coverage of this topic, please see:
CRTC Calls for Community TV Producers' Input
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?aid=1000324726&PC=
CRTC Issues Report on Canadian Media and Communications Industry
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?aid=1000336881&PC=
Canada Lacks – But Desperately Needs – National Digital Strategy
http://www.mediacastermagazine.com/issues/ISarticle.asp?aid=1000342764&PC=