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The Broadcast
Act aims to encourage programming that will safeguard, enrich and
strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of
Canada. We fill a current gap in broadcastings' efforts in this
regard by providing a platform for the local community to
express, on an ongoing basis, local civic issues, and to portray
the narratives of local residents-the heroic efforts of children
in sports, of volunteers active in the community, of seniors and
their struggles of transition. Our station provides a significant
step for a defined community (East Toronto) to actualize itself
as a civil society.
Our station
avoids the ghettoization of the views of marginalized groups and
addresses the lack of presence in the mainstream media of the
perspective and images of the marginalized by offering to these
groups a platform in which they can present, on an equal footing
to mainstream groups, as well as a platform in which they can
interact.
Our station in its needs assessment, planning, and experimental phase
conducted a major outreach campaign and now has explicit support from
individuals and voluntary sector organizations representing
immigrant, faith, sport and culture, senior, ecological and many
other organizations. Giving these groups an accessible platform
for the presentation of their ongoing, concerns, triumphs, and
specific projects will do more to assist our neighbourhood
achieve a sense of identity, and function as a democratic, civil
society than any other initiative. It serves as a model for other
communities in the GTA (Mississauga, New Market, Pickering, etc.)
needing assistance in developing a process of exchanging views
and news-the foundation of a civil society.
Our station was developed with an explicit aim to make more inclusive
and diverse what is represented in broadcast media. One of the stumbling
blocks up to now has been the sheer enormity of the technical challenges
required to launch a community-driven initiative, given that current
carriers are not responsive at the deep, local level were this station
grounds its programming. After the experimental phase, these technical
hurdles have finally been overcome-the infrastructure has been created with
the assistance of hundreds of hours of volunteer time, and the community
in all of its diversity can participate in content creation.
Our station gives access to groups and individuals who are active locally,
not on a "one-off" basis, not simply as a vignette as part of the
magazine section of a newscast, but consistently, with coverage from the
beginnings of organizing to the resolution of issues, over months and years.
Viewers are able to follow issues and local narratives, and most importantly,
drive coverage by being encouraged to interact, either on the air in person,
via live phone-in and videoconferencing, or through fax and e-mail.
The overall philosophy of this community station is to think globally in
terms of the range of topics and issues covered, but to act locally in terms
of how any issue or topic is framed and presented. Local residents and
groups finally have an opportunity to share their perspectives and first
hand accounts of subjects broadcast.
An important outcome of our community access station is to strengthen the
local community by exposing more residents to more divergent perspectives,
and following on this "listening", the station participates in
helping build a more civil society wherein progress is built upon harmony
and open debate, not simply a function of economic power. Democracy is
listening: the station is unique in that its ear is close to the ground of
the housing co-ops, community centres, places of worship, theatres,public
housing, and local neighbourhoods. This "ear" translates into
one strand of the community's "voice."
The station targets advertisers with five or fewer employees and or have
been in business less than five years and offers substantially reduced
rates, thus giving access to a television medium to a business group
currently not represented.
Programming differs from local programming currently being offered by its
depth-we are able to focus on topics, artists, local narratives,civic
culture in general, and provide comprehensive coverage-and by its
consistency: an entire season of a new girls hockey league could be covered,
current civic issues are followed on a daily and weekly basis. No other
station is currently covering our communities' activities with this degree
of attention and caring.
This station differs from current and traditional attempts at providing
community access in that as a low power transmitter it is rooted in a
geographic location, and its programming derives from and enhances the
"sense of place" of East Toronto. This station has become an
important community-driven force in an ongoing effort to help create a sense
of place in a neighbourhood that includes large segments of economically and
culturally marginalized populations. This station provides children, youth,
adults, and organizations with a tangible way to connect and develop our
community's a sense of place: that mixture of natural and social elements
of a location which creates its special character. While media and
technology can distance us from fully realizing our sense of place, this
station is an example of how technology-even an "old" technology
like UHF--can be a tool to recover the identity and contribute to developing
a more vibrant sense of place and identity-vibrant because it is more
diverse.
During the experimental licence phase, the station touched a huge number
of people in the community and requests to participate were immediate.
Phone-in segments were active, and it was clear that even the few issues
that were covered hit upon a great deal of pent up demand for a platform
for those involved to communicate to the larger neighbourhood.
Most of the programming has been developed as the result of our community
outreach activities already underway for 8 years. The community has told us
this is the programming that it wants.
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