Media.Knet.Ca

Dear Friends of Community Radio and TV,

As you may or may not have heard, the CBC is planning to shut down all of its free over-the-air broadcasts outside major cities and provincial capitals on July 31st.

This represents both a big hit to the idea of free access for all to the public broadcaster (for whom we all pay taxes).

But perhaps of even more concern is that the CBC is planning to scrap or sell off all the transmission infrastructure (towers and more than 600 transmitters) countrywide.

These could easily be maintained by communities themselves in the short term to keep the CBC free to air, but in the longer term can be upgraded and repurposed for community TV, highspeed Internet and mobile phone service (which many rural communities still don't have, or have only if they can pay top dollar... e.g. as much as $160 per month for a highspeed Internet service by satellite).

With support from the Canadian Media Guild, OpenMedia, and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, we are today launching a major campaign to save as much of this infrastructure as possible for communities.

It has two parts: direct outreach to communities so that they realize it's an option, and constructive moral pressure on the CBC to offer this infrastructure to communities for free before it's scrapped or sold to private entities.

To that end:

1) Please write a letter to the CRTC (which gets copied to the CBC) before the June 18th public consultation deadline (the link at the bottom of the press release below will take you to sample letters and talking points which can be submitted with a single button click).

2) If you can spare a few moments, we could use assistance in this campaign, both with outreach to affected communities (e.g. it might be you who makes a few phone calls to municipal councils in your area explaining the opportunity) and also with submitting letters collected to the CRTC.

Anyone can do it with an Internet connection from anywhere.

If you haven't submitted yourself directly to the CRTC before, we could walk you through it in about 5 minutes over the phone.

Although on the surface this appears to be a CBC issue and why is CACTUS making these efforts, in fact the CBC transmitter shutdown presents a fantastic 'hook' and opportunity to get municipalities and communities across Canada interested in the idea of community broadcasting and rebroadcasting.

The CBC infrastructure has already been paid for, and we want to use this opportunity to move community broadcasting forward in Canada by a gigantic leap.

Please help!

The press release we sent out this morning is below. As a first step, please use the links at the bottom to submit your own thoughts to the CRTC. If you can spare a few moments, please contact me at (819) 772-2862

Thanks!

Cathy Edwards CACTUS 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

CACTUS: PRESS RELEASE

CBC Transmitters Slated for July Shutdown Should Be Offered to Communities

Ottawa (May 25, 2012) In response to federal cuts, the CBC and Radio-Canada plan to switch off more than 600 analog transmitters on July 31, 2012. Canadians outside major cities and provincial and territorial capitals will lose free access to the CBC and Radio-Canada over the air using bunny ears or rooftop antennae. Ontario educational broadcaster TVO is shutting down more than 100 analog TV transmitters on July 31^st as well. The affected communities need to act if they want to avoid losing this infrastructure.

Getting the CBC's signal to all Canadians living in communities of at least 500 people was a major policy goal in the 1970s to link the country coast to coast. "This transmission infrastructure is worth millions and has already been paid for by Canadian taxpayers," said Catherine Edwards of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS). Rather than being scrapped, communities should be given the chance to maintain it themselves. The transmitters and towers can be used not just to continue free CBC service, but also to set up local wireless Internet, mobile service, or community TV."

The CRTC has begun a public consultation on the CBC's transmitter plan. CACTUS is urging town and band councils, community colleges, community media groups and concerned CBC viewers to ask the CRTC and CBC to make the transmission equipment available for local public use by the June 18^th dead line. CACTUS has been in touch with federal departments and the CBC to develop a program similar to the federal Heritage Lighthouse Program, in which communities maintain lighthouses that would otherwise be torn down. TVO has already contacted over 100 communities affected by the shutdown of TVO over-the-air signals to offer them the towers and satellite equipment for free. According to TVO, 80% of another set of 100 towers that were decommissioned last year were kept by the affected communities. So far, however, the CBC has stated that it is not planning to consult affected communities and wants "fair market value" for its equipment, even if communities are willing to take over maintenance.

Community rebroadcasting already exists in more than 100 small towns in Canada. Valemont, BC, rebroadcasts six TV channels, including a local community TV service, and three radio channels. Residents pay $40 per household per year for the service. "There is no longer a business case for the large telecommunications companies--and now even the CBC and TVO--to serve many small and remote communities," Edwards adds. "What most communities don't realize is how cost-effective it has become to offer these services using digital technologies, especially if the towers are already there."

An information package developed by CACTUS and the Canadian Media Guild that describes how community rebroadcasting works is available at http://cactus.independentmedia.ca/node/471.

For help writing letters to the CRTC about loss of CBC service, visit the web site of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting at http://www.friends.ca/free_cbc. For help writing letters about the loss of CBC infrastructure that could be repurposed for rural broadband, see http://openmedia.ca/lifeline.

Contact: Catherine Edwards (819) 772-2862